January 1, 2013 Now, the tragedy of the common species NEHA SINHA

NOT RARE ENOUGH:With their low economic values in the illicit trade, common species are not getting the protection of enforcement.PHOTO: K. ANANTHAN Last month, a video set in Nagaland went viral. It traced villagers in Nagaland fastening nets on the banks of a reservoir. Trapped in them were small, indignant, shrieking birds; falcons that had flown in from Siberia.

Amur falcons, insectivorous birds of prey, stop at Nagalands Doyang reservoir each year on their way from Siberia to southern Africa. They spend a few days in Nagaland to fatten up for their transoceanic journey to Africa. This year, an estimated one lakh Amur Falcons were trapped and killed by villagers for the commercial meat trade. Both the trade and the appetite for the Amur falcon seem to be growing: while some birds were transported in trucks for sale in places far from the trapping spot, others were discarded, simply because too many had been caught.

Year after year, India speaks out at international fora about its culture of tolerance, particularly at meetings for wild species conservation. Being a diplomatic norm, platitudes of this sort are not surprising. There is merit too, in this argument: the same philosophies have led India to saying a blanket no to hunting of animals on the mainland, as per law. The country has also said no to policies of sustainable wild animal use, which other countries with meat eating histories have adopted: with quotas on hunting, or (theoretically) controlled bushmeat/wildmeat consumption. But there is reason to believe that we are ignoring a burning problem in our midst the widespread

hunting and trapping, especially of species that do not figure on the mainstream protection radar. Our policymakers are uncomfortably close to believing that the land of tolerance, does not in fact hunt its animals. Indiscriminate The word hunting evokes several connotations. The activity of stalking an intended victim, the wait for the prey, and the allure of the strength of the hunterpredator have held central, forceful value in many civilisations. The Mughal emperors hunted to showcase their pomp and their strength, and the British

hunted man-eating tigers, or problem animals, in India and other countries to exercise a tightly orchestrated symbol of control and power. As an independent nation with a gleaming set of environmental laws, we have declared these symbols as an anachronism. It is argued that trapping is different from hunting. Trapping animals in nets and snares suggests a certain opportunism, and with unerring certainty, a bycatch (a term used most regularly for fishing) of non-target species. Depending on the way you look at it, trapping with the intention to eat whatever gets caught is a source of bushmeat; trapping with

the intention of poaching a target species invariably leads to the ensnaring of non-target species: like deer being caught in snares meant for tigers. We have had a corporeal, intense focus on the poaching of charismatic species (the tiger, leopard, lion, snow leopard, elephant) which are trapped for a lucrative and wellfunded poaching trade. What we seem to have lost, both as spectators as well as enforcement direction, is a focus on common or widespread species which are being trapped and killed all over India, and indiscriminately. In 2010, the Munia, a small colourful melodious finch, was found to be sold for as little as

Rs.150 for 100 birds by investigators from poaching watchdog TRAFFIC India. That is a value of less than Rs.2 for each bird one that is endemic to India, threatened, and found in increasingly fragmented landscapes. Nesting in bushes and shrub, the Munia, much like the House Sparrow, is losing habitat all over the country, which is its only natural range. The fact that it is sold for nearly nothing, and perceived as common, demonstrates the ease with which it is caught. Similar investigations reveal that it is birds that dont have to be displayed that are increasingly being found in the meat trade. These are birds that are concealed, kept in half-dead conditions, and then sold for a

pittance: reducing the risk of detection. This also means that a boggling number of small birds are in this meat trade victims of trapping, trapping of any and every species that gets caught. Up to 450 species are in this illegal trade, with birds being the single genus most widely traded illegally among all the hunted species. The Francolin, wading birds, Pintail, Shoveler and Sandpiper are other birds, still plentiful, which disappear in this way. Peaks in winter The trade peaks in winter, where meat-eating is at a premium. This coincides with the migratory

season, and as in the case of the Amur Falcon, has meant a calibrated, site-specific effort to kill. In the late 1960s, Garrett Hardin, an ecologist, coined the term, the tragedy of the commons. He was referring to how people, users of resources, tend to overuse and exploit commons: like meadows, even if they knew that doing so would deplete the resource for all its users. The term has been used most often in contemporary times to refer to the overexploitation, intense and continuous, of the sea and marine resources. I would go a step further in saying that what is happening to our birds, and the killing of these

birds, is the tragedy of the common species . Few species are common any more, but it does follow nearly often that the common species gets disregarded, overlooked or otherwise not valued as exciting, simply because there are so many individuals of that species. The anthropogenic allee affect is a theory that suggests that with human-induced rarity of a resource (like poaching or trapping), human attempts to extract that resource (i.e. more trapping) increase even as resource availability goes down. This explains why items that are so rare are always higher priced, corresponding to their high

demand. It further explains why the increased price (the belief in desire stemming from rarity) causes even more exploitative measures towards extraction of the commodity. This has been the sad course of human desire resources like gold, illegal wildlife contraband like ivory, to pink diamonds, to unblemished natural pearls, are all down to a few sources, deemed even more precious due to their uncommonness . The tragedy of the common species is that these species, with low economic values in their illicit trade, are escaping the radar of enforcement. Conversely, they are escaping the radar of enforcement

as the anthropogenic allee affect has not set in so far, and subsequently these species are not considered rare enough to bother worrying about. Common species do not stay common forever. Such is the case of the house sparrow and the Gyps vulture, both of which are vanishing all over their range in India, and the now extinct Passenger pigeon, once crowding skies in the United States. This year, one lakh less Amur Falcons will reach their destination in southern Africa. At this point, we dont have to start debating hierarchies of protection afresh. Instead, we must act on keeping the common, common.

(Neha Sinha is with the Bombay Natural History Society. The views expressed are personal. Email: [email protected] )January 1, 2013 Moving forward to go back

CHINMAYA R. GHAREKHAN

Persistent efforts by multiple western players finally paid off. The Taliban and the Kabul government met officially in Chantilly, a suburb of Paris, on December 20 and 21 under the

aegis of a French think tank called the Fondation pour la Recherche Strategique. The Taliban was represented by senior leaders Shahabuddin Dilawar, former Taliban ambassador to Saudi Arabia, and Naeem Wardak both based in Doha. The government side was represented by the Higher Peace Council chairman Salahuddin Rabbani. Also participating were Yunus Qanuni, the ideologue of the opposition National Coalition of Afghanistan led by Abdulla Abdulla, Ahmad Zia Massoud, brother of the legendary Tajik commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, as well as representatives of the hardline

Hizb-ul-Islam of Gulbuddin Hikmatyar. In all, there were about 20 delegates participating in the talks. For an understanding It is noteworthy that the Kabul delegation included a sprinkling of non-Pashtun tribes Massoud, a Tajik, Mohaqqeq, a Hazara leader, and Faizullah Zaki, an Uzbek. Mr. Massoud said there was a new generation which did not believe in war and sought an understanding with the Taliban. The Taliban, for its part, clarified in no uncertain terms that no negotiations with anyone were involved and that the Taliban

wants the world community to listen to our goals; in other words, the Taliban approached the Paris talks as a platform to air its ideology and demands. A few weeks prior to the Chantilly meeting, Kabul had disclosed a Peace Process Roadmap consisting of five steps, which sought to outline a vision in which, by 2015, the Taliban, the Hizb-eIslami and other armed groups will have given up armed opposition. There is reason to believe that this roadmap 2015 is a joint AfghanPakistan draft, prepared in close consultation with the United States. The roadmap assumes that all the armed insurgencies will have transformed themselves

into political groups and will actively participate in the political and constitutional process, including national elections. The first step focuses on securing Pakistans collaboration which would include Pakistan releasing specific Taliban detainees. Pakistan has already repatriated several mid-level Taliban prisoners and might release Mullah Baradar. The second step envisages direct talks with the Taliban, which Pakistan should facilitate, in Saudi Arabia in the first half of 2013. Step three calls for ceasefire and transformation of the Taliban into a political party. The final steps include securing peaceful end to the conflict during the first half of 2014 and moves to sustain the long-term stability of Afghanistan

and the region. Lip service is paid in the roadmap to the principles of respect for the Afghan constitution and renunciation of ties with al-Qaeda. A concession This was the first time senior Taliban representatives sat down with the government and other opposition groups. This, in a way, amounts to a concession by the Taliban which had, thus far, refused to talk to the Kabul government which it did not regard as legitimate. There was no joint statement after the Chantilly meeting. In the words of the sponsoring think tank, the

objective was to encourage the Afghans to project themselves towards the horizon of 2020. Nonetheless, the importance of the talks having taken place should not be minimised. The Taliban issued a statement after the talks in which it rejected the present constitution on the ground that it was made under the shadows of B52 bombers of the invaders. We need a constitution based on the holy Islam, national interest, past achievements and social justice, the Taliban declared. How much should be read into the fact that the Taliban talked of holy Islam and not based on sharia? It also referred to social justice; does it

suggest an implied pledge to go slow on womens issues? Turkmenistan offered to host a follow-up meeting to Chantilly but Kabul refused; did Kabul feel that the meeting was more meaningful for the Taliban than for the government? It is obvious that this flurry of activity has only one, perfectly understandable objective from the American and the Wests perspective: to provide a respectable screen behind which to implement the withdrawal from Afghanistan. As for Hamid Karzai, he too would wish to leave behind some legacy whereby there will be at least an agreement on paper which, hopefully, will avoid the

countrys descent into chaos which many analysts anticipate post-2014. Significant The announcement of the Paris talks signifies several things. Firstly, it means that the U.S. and NATO have given up, once and for all, the objective of defeating the Taliban. Secondly, there is more than a tacit admission that the Afghan National Security Force will be incapable of ensuring security in the country post2014,considering that only one out of 23 Afghan brigades is considered capable of operating on its own. The green on blue

attacks have also played their part in this. Thirdly, it proves that the British are still far ahead of the Americans in understanding the region. The U.K. called for coopting the Taliban in the government years before even Mr. Karzai did, as the only way out for the country. Fourthly, and importantly, it must be borne in mind that the West, especially the Americans, never had any problem with the Taliban. It was the treatment of women that made the then U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright antiTaliban. The forceful action after 9/11 was aimed at al-Qaeda, not the Taliban. Had the Taliban agreed to cut ties with al-Qaeda

then, it would still be ruling in Kabul. The West by and large would have nothing to worry as and when, not if, the Taliban obtains a share in the government. The roadmap explicitly states that the Taliban will be included not only in the state power structure but will also be given non-elective positions at different levels. This is a clear reference to governorships in provinces such as Paktia, Paktita and Khost. India should watch these developments most warily. There is no reason for us to rejoice at the possibility of the Taliban becoming a part of the government. We did support the

reconciliation process some time ago, but it was probably more theoretical at that time when the three red lines were still in place, namely, respecting the constitution, renunciation of violence and severing ties with alQaeda. These red lines have since been given up and are now projected as objectives to be considered at the end of the process rather than as preconditions for talks. It is one thing to support the efforts to achieve stability in Afghanistan and another to welcome an arrangement which will guarantee the Taliban a share in power with all the negative consequences that might follow for us.

Pakistan, the winner Pakistan has emerged the clear winner. We should have no illusion. Mr. Karzai has decided to throw in his lot with Pakistan, his brother. Pakistan, for all its protestations of not wanting the Taliban returning to power in Kabul, has been given the pride of place in Mr. Karzais roadmap which confers key role on Islamabad in the whole process. Pakistan has succeeded in convincing its western interlocutors that there is a paradigm shift in the political mindset in the country. Once the Taliban manages to get a share of power in Kabul, it will eventually endeavour to grab total power.

Since it will remain the most cohesive force, ideologically, politically and militarily, it would be imprudent to exclude this possibility. In other words, the Taliban might well achieve around a conference table what it failed to achieve in the battlefield.January 1, 2013 Ring out the rhetoric, ring in results Electricity Bill Payment - Pay Electricity Bills Easily Online Avoid Long Queues. Sign Up Now! Myuniverse.co.in/Electricity_Bills RENANA JHABVALA BETWA SHARMA

DARK SPACES:Many women have had to leave education and jobs because of the harassment they face in buses or on roads. This is especially true of poor or middle class families where girls are emerging from their homes or traditional occupations. PHOTO: AFP Less than two weeks after the brutal gang rape of the 23-yearold student on a Delhi bus, the issue of womens safety has been overshadowed by other incendiary fallouts and squabbles over the protests, which were carried out by thousands demanding justice for the victim. In the year ahead, it is imperative not to lose sight of the

overarching challenge of protecting Indian women against the rising tide of dangers. Devising and enforcing an agenda for womens safety is a daunting task , but the call for we want justice, which rang out over India Gate, needs a clear agenda and practical action. Women today are entering public spaces in large numbers. Every family, however poor, attempts to send its girls to schools. Girls today aspire to a better and higher education and indeed outnumber and outperform boys in colleges and universities. For a young woman, of every class, marriage and children and the kitchen are no longer her only aspiration, but

many dream of a job, a career and a place in society outside the home. Unlike earlier generations, young women today are no longer cowed down by society and are not afraid to speak their minds. Nor do they meekly accept that they are inferior to men and must bear whatever punishment is imposed on them in public or at home. Accepted culture However, Delhi has always had a culture of various forms of violence against women in public places. It is accepted that a group of men may pass a lewd comment against a woman in

public, or that they may brush up against her in a bus. For young men, harassing women is a right of passage, and is covered up in the mild word teasing. It is not uncommon for this form of open harassment to lead to actual molestation and even rape. Every girl and woman living in Delhi can testify to cases of sexual harassment in public space, while the capital also has the highest number of reported rapes in the country and a dismal conviction rate. The attitude of the general public in Delhi supports this anti-woman culture. Women today often fight back, but are rarely supported by others, even in crowded places.

Every incident, whether in a bus or the metro or on the road, has some men muttering look at the way she is dressed or you should be silent, these things happen or she invited it, or girls should remain at home, why is she out on the streets? These kinds of comments are echoed by public personalities where only dented and painted women protest! If women are to continue on this path towards becoming useful and equal members of society, it is imperative that their safety in public places be guaranteed. We have seen many women who have had to withdraw from schools or jobs because of the harassment

they face in buses or on roads. This is especially true of poor or middle class families where the first generation of girls are emerging from their homes or traditional occupations. Creating a safer environment for women is not only the responsibility of the police or the government, it is a matter for us all. Changing the Delhi culture is a long process that needs concerted effort over months, years and decades. The police and courts need to be active allies in this. The steps needed

First, it is necessary for women to speak up. Silence encourages the perpetrators, and ensures that they behave worse next time. Second, men must support women when they speak up. They must make the perpetrator feel ashamed and apologetic. Third, the police must play an active role. Sexual harassment is not teasing, it is a crime, and the perpetrators cannot be treated with a smirk and that boys will be boys. Finally, when such crimes reach the courts, it is necessary for the courts to also treat them seriously. Many judges view molestation and rape cases as the womans fault and treat her like the criminal, rather than the victim, often using words in their judgments which betray their

biases. At the same time these cases are allowed by a court to drag on for years, so that the victim never gets justice, but continues to be harassed by the criminal who is out on bail. Delhi had 635 reported rape cases in 2012 with only one conviction. It had 193 cases of eve teasing reported with zero convictions. The goal should be results over rhetoric. To begin with, certain public areas in Delhi should be identified to execute a targeted response. Some public spaces where harassment occurs are buses and bus stops, metros, spaces outside schools and colleges and market areas. It is important to protect women and

change the culture in these areas. The Delhi Metro has had a remarkable record in making it safe for women, but conditions are deteriorating in Metros and much more needs to be done. The protection of women needs a programme that involves increased patrolling, increasing lighting of dark areas, introducing CCTV cameras and GPS in buses and trains. Additionally, there should be police booths in areas where there are schools and colleges for an immediate response to women-safety related complaints; and a helpline for women with a set response time to be accessed via phone, emails and texts with

photo/s of the offenders sent by mobile phone. Perhaps most effective would be immediate punishment or fines on the spot as is done in traffic-related offences. Posters, hoardings, announcements and advertisements make an important difference in peoples consciousness. Posters inside metros and buses can encourage men to behave properly and respect women an image with a big cross for a man staring or groping a woman. A sustained advertisement campaign must follow. Besides public service messages and private companies featuring womens products

should focus on messages encouraging women to speak up. Using information However, most important is the need for citizen patrolling and citizen-police cooperation. Parents of school and college girls are often willing to work with police to protect their children. They need to be tapped in large numbers. Womens organisations, and non-governmental organisations (NGO) working with women and girls are able to mobilise and provide information to the police on areas where women face harassment. These NGOs need to be drawn into

partnership with the police and government efforts. Changing the culture of a city is hard work, but it needs to be done. Otherwise, women will continue to face the continuum of sexual harassment from lewd remarks to brutal rape. Decades of efforts to empower women will fail as fear forces them out of public spaces. (Renana Jhabvala is the national coordinator of SEWA and president of SEWA Bharat, and Betwa Sharma is a Delhi-based journalist focusing on human rights.)

Creating a safer environment for women is not only the responsibility of the police or the government, but also a matter for us. With women entering public spaces in greater numbers, changing the capit January 2, 2013 The charm and disgrace of IndiaPakistan cricket BISHAN SINGH BEDI

USING SPORTS:Cricket will suffer for as long as the game is dependent on political clearances.PHOTOS: K. BHAGYA PRAKASH, S.S. KUMAR

For starters, we could have never used this headline for an Ashes series. The reason, if I may add, is pretty simple there are no political overtones to the Ashes whereas an India-Pakistan series is seldom without a political tarkaa . Perhaps, that is what raises the excitement quotient of IndiaPakistan cricket. Goodwill tour Pardon me for recalling here a very personal experience of the most horrendous kind way back

in 1978, when the government of India, under the leadership of late Morarji Desai, decided to mend/renew relations, it was us cricketers he chose to send to Pakistan on a goodwill tour. Yes, it was earnestly a goodwill tour on which Indian cricketers were expected to do what politicians would not dream of doing create goodwill that is. I must confess, initially I was very excited too because it was a dream to play against my good old colleagues Mushtaq Mohammad and Sarfraz Nawaz, from Northants, both outstanding professionals.

There were others too from the county fold, namely Asif Iqbal, Majid Khan, Imran Khan and Zaheer Abbas, all accomplished professionals and happily dominating the county scene then. We thought we had the added advantage of having the Maharaja of Baroda as our manager. He was exceptionally popular in Pakistan. He would often have the privilege of two adjacent suites, with DND (Do Not Disturb) signs outside both, and the man would not be inside at all. Such were the vagaries of our highly protected social interactions.

We had never experienced anything like that on tours elsewhere. There were social dos just about every evening, but did we ever see a charming feminine face? Our lads quickly became disillusioned with their macho images. And on the cricket field we were destined to be even more disillusioned. There is no doubt that we were up against a better and more determined home team. What took us by a much greater surprise was extreme hostility from the public and the media and the umpires, if I may say so.

Lest I sound like a bad loser, let me assure all and sundry that we were comprehensively beaten by a much superior team. If the overall cricket environment did not suit us or our frame of mind, well, it was not supposed to. Much was expected from the spin quartet but sadly, we bowled below par collectively. Not for a moment would I like to take away the brilliance of Zaheer Abbas, Javed Miandad and Imran Khan, who were all peaking gloriously against a listless Indian unit.

I reckon we might have taken our PM Morarji Desais dictum of goodwill a shade too seriously. But I do remember after the Sahiwal fiasco, telling the Manager that he should invite Morarji bhai to lead the Indian squad in Pakistan. It was well nigh impossible to keep politics away from our cricket conversations and much to our chagrin, Pakistanis looked down upon us with utter disdain. We had never experienced such all round scorn on a cricket tour before. Meeting General Zia

My personal plus was getting to know Gen Zia-ul-Haq from close quarters. He was as grim a dictator as they come, but I was able to strike a humane understanding with him with sheer humour. I met Gen. Zia many years later in Jaipur. He had piled himself on the Indian government in the name of cricket diplomacy. I was sitting in the press box when I got a call to see Gen. Zia in his crowded security cordon. He hugged me warmly and then remarked, Bedi Sahib, you have greyed so much. To which my response was fairly spontaneous Gen., you must grey when you grow old unless

you happen to be the President of India. Ive seen quite a few IndiaPakistan series subsequently, both in India and in Pakistan, but I cant think of one which did not have the blessings of the political bosses. That to my mind is the biggest drawback cricket must suffer now and for as long as the game is dependent on political clearances. There is no such constraint in an England-Australia cricket contest. Hence, my vote to the Ashes for being a far superior sporting encounter. als entrenched culture of violence is necessary and possible

January 2, 2013 Needed, urgent electoral reforms NAVIN CHAWLA

When the Election Commission of India turned 60 on January 25, 2010, The Hindu opened its lead editorial of January 29 with the words, After overseeing 15 General Elections to the Lok Sabha, the ECI, in its diamond jubilee year, can with justifiable pride claim to have nursed and strengthened the electoral processes of a nascent democracy. The successes have not been consistent or uniform, but over

the last six decades the ECI managed to make the worlds largest democratic processes freeer and fairer. Largest management exercise As the Chief Election Commissioner of India, I had the satisfaction of stewarding the general election of 2009, arguably the largest management exercise in the world, with integrity and transparency on display in each of the countrys 543 parliamentary constituencies. It is however important to remember that this globally admired institution was built brick by brick from the days of Sukumar Sen, who faced

innumerable odds when he conducted Indias first general election in 1951-52, when literacy was a dismal 16 per cent and where an enormous structure had to be created in even then, the worlds largest democracy. Over the years the Commission kept pace with changing needs, aspirations and technology. In 1988 Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhis government amended the Constitution to reduce the voting age from 21 to 18, thereby enfranchising a whole new generation of voters. In 1982, electronic voting machines made a quiet trial entry in the by-election to the Parur Assembly constituency of Kerala. Later, they

were tried in a few States until 2004, when Chief Election Commissioner T.S. Krishnamurthy took the plunge and conducted the entire general election using almost a million machines. For paucity of space, the reforms and good practices that developed over the years can at best be briefly recounted. These included the creation of a fully computerised database of electors, followed in 2009 by a comprehensive photo electoral roll; election cards reached 514 million voters in time for the general election and deduplication technologies helped further eliminate bogus and duplicate entries. A Booth Level

Officer was created to become the custodian of the electoral roll at each polling station, leading to constant door-to-door verification of electors. Myriad forms of voter assistance were built in on and prior to the election day. General and Expenditure Observers were supplemented by micro-observers to keep the poll day processes transparent. Video cameras began to record the polling and counting procedures. Through the strategy of vulnerability mapping, first tried on any scale in the Uttar Pradesh election of 2007, localities that for reasons of deliberate exclusion, accident or design did not turn up to vote, were identified and enabled to vote. The Commission developed a system of online communication

(COMET) that made it possible to monitor every polling booth on the day of election. In the recent Himachal Pradesh election, there was real-time monitoring of polling at all 7,553 booths using GPS and a web-enabled facility through the Google search engine. Above all, a vital instrument of the Election Commission of Indias impartiality, the Model Code of Conduct, designed to neutralise the lal batti culture and level the playing field between candidates of the ruling party and those in opposition, earned even the grudging respect of political players in the fray! Throughout these years of innovation and development, the Supreme Court of India has stood like a rock behind the Commission, ensuring

it a clear field once elections are announced and until they cease. This respect and support have earned the admiration of many polities in our neighbourhood and beyond. On the flip side, however, The Hindu editorial also pointed out the challenges of criminalisation of politics and the misuse of money power. The dominant role of money in elections, which is taking more and more outrageous forms, is deeply worrying. Instances of politicians paying for news coverage and bribing voters were widespread in the 20092010 elections.

I do agree that these are major problems which have already assumed such proportions that I fear that the electoral process in the future may well stand compromised at the altar of winnability. The process is also reflective of a growing disconnect between the governed and several of those who are elected by means of financial clout and covert muscle power, to dangerously fill the vacuum that stands created. The subject of criminality in politics as well as the dangers of huge overspending, are part of the reforms package that successive Election Commissions have addressed to successive governments. The response over two decades has been tepid, but

now there are glimmers of hope that change may come. Let me take electoral finance first. Although statutory limits were increased in 2011 to broadly Rs. 40 lakhs for a parliamentary seat and Rs. 16 lakhs for an assembly election, levels of actual spending exceed these limits. The ECI does its best by posting as many as 2000 senior officers as observers during a parliamentary election, but in spite of such a large machinery, the candidates and parties use stealth to their advantage. Clearly, raising the monetary ceiling from time to time will not be the answer, while doing away with the ceiling altogether will lead to the creation

of oligarchies with little trace of true representation. According to one estimate, in the recent elections in Himachal Pradesh, the declared income of the 10 richest candidates is cumulatively over Rs. 394 crores! In the recent Gujarat election, the 20 richest candidates all won, among whom the richest declared assets of a whopping Rs. 268 crores! As early as 1972, the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Amendments to Election Laws suggested that the state assume the burden of legitimate election expenses of candidates and political parties. In 1978, the Tarkunde Committee echoed the need for some electoral expenses

being taken up by the government. The Dinesh Goswami Committee (1990) suggested state funding in kind. The Law Commission Report of 1999 pointed to partial state funding. In 2004, the President in his address to the Joint Session of Parliament announced the new governments intent for state funding, itself an item on the National Common Minimum Programme of the UPA. However, when the ECI convened an all-party meeting in February 2006 to discuss the Centres proposal on state funding and invited the six recognised national and 44 recognised State-level political parties, on the proposal of funding not in cash but in terms of facilities, the majority view was

that this would only add to the advantages of bigger parties. It is true that in many well set democracies the proportion of state funding has been increasing vis--vis private financing, but if the 2006 dialogue was anything to go by, it would necessitate the strong will of the national parties to deliberate different models where state funding can be supplemented by proportional air time in the electronic media, which the ECI can administer on the basis of an agreed formula. The ECI must also be empowered to de-register non-serious political parties and the Representation of People Act 1950 amended to

more harshly punish electoral violations. Dealing with criminalisation As regards dealing with those with criminal antecedents, the ECI has time and again written to the Government of India of the day to debar through legislation those against whom charges stand framed for heinous offences. However, parliamentary committees hold that such a provision is liable to misuse by parties in power seeking vendetta. They suggest special courts and speedy trials instead, but these recommendations have not yet been translated into action. Yet

many discerning parliamentarians privately accept that the winnability factor that induces a party to offer tickets to those against whom criminal cases are pending (albeit in appeal), also has the effect of increasingly alienating large sections of people from the political and ruling class itself. Of course this also reflects the widening gap between the leadership of a party from those it seeks to represent. To illustrate my point, did the mass movement of the freedom struggle need those with criminal antecedents to provide it momentum or to drive it when obstacles arose? However, I draw hope from the speeches at the ECI Diamond

Jubilee Celebration on January 25, 2010 where both the Chairperson of the UPA, Sonia Gandhi, and the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Sushma Swaraj, took a public position against this growing unhealthy trend. I remain hopeful, too, that the present Law Minister will take forward the pending draft legislation on this subject which would be a vital step towards strengthening our democratic structure. (Navin Chawla was Chief Election Commissioner from April 2009 to July 2010)

When a political party puts up candidates with criminal charges, it results in the alienation of large sections of people from the political class and politics itself January 2, 2013 SEWA model shows cash transfers work GUY STANDING

EMPTY BAG:The poor live on the edge, and cannot tolerate shortterm costs. While they struggle, the legitimacy of the cash transfer policy will be eroded. PHOTOS: AP, KAMAL NARANG

While meaning well, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) is putting at risk the great idea of cash transfers by designing them primarily as substitutions for subsidised consumer goods. That may be a laudable longer-term aim; the Public Distribution System (PDS) is in a mess. But strategically, cash transfers must boost economic growth and be a progressive measure to reduce income inequality and poverty, both at the outset and in the longer-term. They can be both. The reduction of cheating, repeatedly mentioned by government spokesmen, must be a secondary gain, not the main one.

If, as with the ill-advised Kotkasim model, the intention is simply to substitute cash payments for a subsidy, many people will become worse off in the first few months. While the price of kerosene will be raised, teething problems with the banks or with the cash flow will mean they will not obtain the cash repayment to compensate. It is all very well for planners to say this will be sorted out eventually. The poor live on the edge, and cannot tolerate short-term costs. While they struggle, the legitimacy of the cash transfer policy will be eroded. Pilot scheme

This is why SEWA and Unicef have been implementing a cash transfer pilot scheme in which the cash provided has been a small top-up to existing subsidies. As a result, nobody in the villages is worse off than before. There have been teething problems associated with opening bank accounts and with learning how to use the cash. But these have taken place in an atmosphere of net gain for the recipients. As people have learned to adapt, support has grown not only for the idea of cash transfers but for substitution for rationed items. As a result, planners could now implement a substitution scheme in those villages that would be welcomed, would improve welfare and save government money.

The biggest mistake the government is making in rolling out the Kotkasim model is trying to save money in the short-term rather than treating the rollout of cash transfers as a measure with upfront net spending that will reduce public spending in subsequent years, once the scheme has been legitimised. Cutting budget deficits is necessary, but it must be a medium-term objective, not a short-term one that jeopardises the longer-term. The biggest risk is that so many people will lose in the set-up period that the idea of cash

transfers will be delegitimised before it has a chance to become appreciated as liberating and welfare-improving. This should not happen in the Anashree scheme in Delhi, which is sensible in that it will give an unconditional cash transfer to vulnerable people excluded by the cap placed on Below Poverty Line cards. Although it will be limited because of its targeting, it will not cut anybodys living standards. But the broader scheme in those 51 districts will suffer from targeting failures and a premature substitution procedure. An example

Let me give an example to illustrate the fiscal point. Suppose one were to provide everybody with Rs.200 per month on top of the value of the PDS and other subsidies, with the proviso that within three months of starting to receive that cash they had to receive it in a bank account or obtain the Aadhaar. This would give people time to deal with the practicalities, while nobody would actually lose in the short-term. At the end of the first year, the cash transfer amount could be increased to, say, Rs.300 while some subsidy worth Rs.100 were removed, again leaving nobody worse off. In that second year, the fiscal saving would be well above

the Rs.100 because we know the cost of transferring Rs.100 to any recipient is actually about Rs.350. The Ministry of Finance has told us that, and the Deputy Chair of the Planning Commission has said that only 16 per cent of spending on subsidised item reaches the poor. So any removal of a subsidy would save the government much more than the value of it to the consumer. And it must always be remembered that a government can afford short-term costs that low-income citizens cannot tolerate without acute discomfort. This way of substituting cash for subsidies would be strategically wise and redistributive, since it would leave scope for increasing

the value of transfers to lowincome groups while saving money fiscally, since the saving on any reduction of a subsidy could be shared between the government coffers and the citizen recipient. After all, both the citizen recipient and the government would gain revenue. This leads back to the most important point of all. Cash transfers must be understood primarily as a way of reducing inequality and poverty, while being fiscally sustainable. Other considerations must be secondary to that objective. This is why we should all plead with the politicians to go against their nature and depoliticise the

transformation of social policy as much as they can. Well, we should try. (Guy Standing is Professor of Economics at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and copresident of Basic Income Earth Network. He is working with SEWA and Unicef on a set of pilot cash transfer schemes. The views expressed are not necessarily those of SEWA.)

Payments were initially made as top-ups to subsidies and not as a substitute, so that beneficiaries got used to the new system

without suffering problems January 3, 2013

its teething

Lets make judges selection more transparent MARKANDEY KATJU

A BEAUTIFUL BUILDING IS NOT EVERYTHING:The present system of selection is secretive and subjective. The picture is of Court No. Oneof the Madras High Court. PHOTO: V. GANESAN The decisions of the Supreme Court in the two judges cases in 1993 and 1998 have been criticised because they have not only practically amended the

Constitution (which could only have been done by Parliament) by inventing a collegium system unknown to the Constitution, but also because the working of the collegium system has often been found defective. I would, therefore, like to describe my preferred method of recommending names for appointment. I came to Chennai as Chief Justice of the Madras High Court in November 2004. The sanctioned strength of High Court Judges here was then 49 (60 today). At the time, there were about 23 or 24 vacancies, which meant that about half the posts in the High Court were lying vacant.

I was a total stranger to Tamil Nadu as I had come from Uttar Pradesh. I had been a lawyer in the Allahabad High Court, and thereafter a judge there. Every institution is really about the personnel manning it. So, a High Court is not really about a beautiful building or beautiful lawns but the judges who man it. They should be first class people in conduct and in legal knowledge. I was determined to recommend good names for appointment as High Court Judges and not bow to pressure. This was the method I adopted:

I requested a dozen sitting judges of the High Court, in order of seniority, to give me a list of lawyers of the High Court whom they thought deserved to be appointed as High Court judges. I also requested four or five very senior and respected lawyers of the Madras High Court to give their lists. I also consulted some respected retired judges. Thus I got about 17 or 18 lists. I received those lists, and, along with my two senior most colleagues, found certain names

to be common in many lists. Enquiries were made even about those names. We also considered some names which were not very common. This exercise went on for two to three months and ultimately there was consensus. It was these names which were recommended for appointment. I then went to Delhi and met the then Honble Chief Justice of India, Mr. Justice Lahoti, and informed him about the methodology I had adopted. I told him that I had insisted that I would only recommend the names of persons who had a great reputation and good practice, were non-controversial and not too close to any political party

(otherwise such persons would not be neutral and impartial). I also referred to what was said by a Lord Chancellor of England (who had then the authority to recommend names for appointment of British High Court judges) that the person whom he would recommend must be a gentleman, and it would do no harm if he knew a little law! (The second part of this sentence should not be taken literally because it is certain that a person to be appointed as a judge must know some law! What I meant was that if a person has put in 20 years as a lawyer, he is bound to know some law. More important, thereafter, is that he should be of high character.)

I told Mr. Justice Lahoti that the methodology that I had adopted was a result of a consensus after wide consultation with about 20 persons including sitting judges, respected retired judges and very senior respected lawyers of the High Court. Since none of the persons I had recommended was either known to me (except for their performances in cases they argued before me) or belong to my caste or community, I had no personal interest in any such person. Hence it was up to the Supreme Court Collegium to approve or disapprove the names.

In any case, I told him, it would not, in any way, bother me if any name was rejected because I had no personal interest. Ignoring pressure I must add that certain important people did try to influence me in this connection, but I paid no heed to them as I was determined to do my duty to the Madras High Court, come what may. As a result of that, almost all my recommendations were accepted, and 17 judges were appointed to the Madras High Court in December 2005, a record for that High Court.

In my opinion, the methodology which was adopted by me should also be adopted for making recommendations for appointment of judges in the Supreme Court as well as in all High Courts. The present system, based on the decisions of the Supreme Court in the Judges Case, is defective as there is a lot of subjectivity. In my opinion, the Judges Cases should not be understood to mean that only the five senior most judges of the Supreme Court (three senior most for the High Courts) should be consulted for appointment as Supreme Court and High Court Judges. There should be very wide consultation with at least 15 to 20 people who are highly reputed as judges, former judges, senior

lawyers. After this, the consensus which emerges should be recommended. I was the sixth in seniority in the Supreme Court. But I regret that I was never consulted by the Chief Justice. The five senior most judges met in a highly secretive manner for deciding whom to recommend as a judge of the Supreme Court. This manner severely restricts the inputs which are required for making high quality recommendations. Justice Ms Ruma Pal, former Judge of the Supreme Court, said that deliberations of the collegium are a complete mystery. It should not be so in a democracy, where there should be transparency,

otherwise allegations are bound to arise, however unfounded, that improper recommendations have been made for extraneous considerations. I, therefore, recommend to the Chief Justice and to the Chief Justices of all High Courts, that they should follow the same method I adopted for appointment of judges in the Supreme Court and all High Courts, and not limit the consultations to only Collegium members. In my opinion, the decisions of the Supreme Court in the cases of 1993 and 1998 should be understood in their proper perspective, and not in a narrow sense.

(Markandey Katju, a former Chief Justice of the Madras and Delhi High Courts, former Acting Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court and former Judge of the Supreme Court of India, is currently Chairman of the Press Council of India.)

Wide consultation, rather than the closed-door deliberations of the collegium, is what the Supreme Court and the High Courts need January 3, 2013

Polio free does not mean paralysis free Natural Heart Treatment - Avoid Heart/Bypass Surgery. Join 7 Days Heart Treatment Program. www.MadhavBaug.org/EnrollNow N. GOPAL RAJ

Identifying children who suddenly display muscle weakness, often not moving one or more of their limbs as a result, forms the cornerstone of polio surveillance. Such children could have acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) that is symptomatic of polio, a disease caused by a virus. But AFP can also

arise for other reasons, including infection by non-polio pathogens. No child in India has been diagnosed with polio for nearly two years now and all the indications are that the virus responsible for it is no longer circulating here. However, the countrys polio surveillance system has indicated a sharp increase during recent years in the number of non-polio AFP cases. Alarming data Data published by the World Health Organisation show that close to 8,000 non-polio AFP cases were identified in India during 2003. They went up to over 12,000 the following year, more

than 26,000 in 2005 and crossed 40,000 by 2007. In 2011, there were more than 60,000 non-polio AFP cases. A good polio surveillance system ought to pick up all AFP cases among children so that they can be screened for poliovirus infection. On average, only about one child out of every 200 children carrying the poliovirus develops AFP. Such cases must be identified so that appropriate immunisation measures can be undertaken. Indias polio surveillance shows that the country is polio-free. But it also indicates that the country now has the worlds highest rate of non-polio AFP cases. According

to data published in WHOs Weekly Epidemiological Record , Indias annualised non-polio AFP rate for 2011 stood at 15.06 per one lakh children below 15 years of age, compared to a global rate that year of 5.48. Moreover, most of the countrys non-polio AFP cases occur in just two States Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. They accounted for about 61 per cent of the 53,000odd non-polio AFP cases identified in the country in 2012, according to data from WHOs National Polio Surveillance Project. As a result, the two States have far higher annualised non-polio AFP rates than other States around 34 for Bihar and about 23 for Uttar

Pradesh. The rate for the country as a whole is slightly over 12. The increased non-polio AFP rate is due to increased reporting of AFP cases due to deliberate efforts of the programme to increase the sensitivity of the surveillance system since 2004, according to the WHO Country Office for India. In a written response provided to this correspondent, the health body said these efforts were more intense and closely monitored in the traditionally polio-endemic states of Bihar and U.P., resulting in even higher rates of reporting of AFP cases in those States. In 2004, a number of steps were initiated to strengthen surveillance in order to accurately

and more rapidly detect all polio cases in the country, it said. Those measures included expanding the definition of AFP; increasing the number of AFP reporting sites; increasing the number of active surveillance visits; and more training for health professionals on what constituted an AFP case. Since then, the number of AFP cases that were reported and investigated continued to increase, it noted. This was not due to an increase in the incidence of a specific disease that might cause these symptoms. Rather, it was the direct result of surveillance activities for AFP cases being strengthened.

The programme in India had taken a much broader interpretation of what would qualify as an AFP case than other countries have. Although facial paralysis would not be part of a standard definition of AFP, it was included in that definition for India. Other similar examples were diseases like meningo-encephalitis, Bells palsy, post-diphtheria polyneuritis and spinal muscular atrophy. Data had shown that broadening the case definition led to the detection of some polio cases that would have otherwise been missed, the WHO Country Office noted. Moreover, in the remaining polioendemic countries of Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan too,

efforts to strengthen polio surveillance were resulting in increased non-polio AFP cases being reported, it added. The high non-polio AFP rates in the country ought to be a red flag, remarked T. Jacob John, a leading virologist who was with Christian Medical College, Vellore, and is known for his work on polio eradication. With heightened polio surveillance, sick children with suspected paralysis or possible neurological maladies were being identified and tested by the polio surveillance system, he remarked. However, the neurological disorders given by the WHO Country Office as examples of the

expanded definition of AFP were likely to account for only a small part of the increase in non-polio AFP cases being seen in India. No clear picture Unfortunately, the cases of children with non-polio AFP were not being monitored by either the polio eradication programme or the larger state health care system. As a result, there was no clear picture of what was causing the AFP, the kind of diseases these children displayed, or how many of them were seriously affected, he pointed out. A range of non-polio pathogens could produce AFP, said Dr. John. With many such pathogens, the

paralysis they caused would often disappear in a short period of time. However, others were capable of causing quite serious diseases, disability and even death. Two teams of Indian scientists recently studied the sorts of enteroviruses found in children with non-polio AFP. Enteroviruses are a diverse group, most of which replicate in the alimentary tract. The poliovirus is part of this group. Several non-polio enteroviruses have been associated with a range of acute and chronic human diseases, including polio-like paralysis. In a study published in 2009, a team at the Sanjay Gandhi

Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences in Lucknow tested over 46,000 stool samples from children with AFP in U.P., Bihar and other northern States between 2004 and 2007. In the other study, C. Durga Rao of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, and his colleagues looked for enteroviruses in stool samples collected from more than 2,700 children with non-polio AFP in Kerala, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh between 2007 and 2009. Enteroviruses Both groups found that only about 30 per cent of the non-polio AFP cases were associated with enteroviruses. These viruses could therefore only partially explain the

non-polio detected.

AFP

cases

being

In a paper published early last year in the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics , Neetu Vashisht and Jacob Puliyel of the St. Stephens Hospital, Delhi, gave another perspective on the issue. Children in Bihar and U.P. have received more doses of oral polio vaccine than elsewhere in the country. The oral vaccine, it was found, became less efficacious in the face of gut infections and diarrhoea that were widely prevalent in those States. In their paper, Dr. Vashisht and Dr. Puliyel analysed the non-polio AFP rates across all States over 10 years up to 2010, and found that

the rate increased in proportion to the number of polio vaccine doses received in each area. In 2012, the number of doses of oral vaccine given to children in Bihar and U.P. had come down and, for the first time, there was a decrease in the non-polio AFP cases in those States, Dr. Puliyel told this correspondent. There was need for a critical appraisal to find the factors contributing to the increase in non-polio AFP with increase in OPV *oral polio vaccine+ doses perhaps looking at the influence of strain shifts of enteropathogens induced by the vaccine, said Dr. Vashisht and Dr. Puliyel in the paper.

The non-polio AFP rate was not correlated with the number of oral vaccine doses that were administered, countered the WHO Country Office in its response. The largest number of oral vaccine doses given in India was in 2004, which had the lowest non-polio AFP rate in the last eight years. Moreover, although the number of oral vaccine doses given in the country had shown a continuous decline since 2007, the non-polio AFP rate had increased during the same period. In Bihar and U.P. too, there were similar trends of reduced oral vaccine doses and rising AFP rates during 2007-2011. The ICMR *Indian Council of Medical Research+ is leading the investigations into non-polio

causes of AFP, the WHO Country Office stated.

There is no room for complacency that India has eliminated this crippling disease as Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have recorded a high iJanuary 3, 2013 Taking the aggression out of masculinity Nokia Mobile Phones - Leader In Mobile Device Market. Check New Products In Detail Now! www.Nokia.Com SANJAY SRIVASTAVA

CELEBRATING MANHOOD:Swami Vivekanandas masculine photographic-pose is revealing of

how Indian nationalism encouraged a deeply masculine notion of modernity; religious customs, such as Karva Chauth (right), openly propagate maleworship. PHOTOS: R. SHIVAJI RAO, ROHIT JAIN PARAS Sexual crimes derive from social attitudes and no serious effort at lessening their occurrence can ever depend upon cosmetic measures such as greater policing and calls for the death penalty. This is not to deny either the legitimacy of the anger over the terrible event that led to the recent rape and death of a young woman, or that the Indian justice system frequently subjects rape victims to as much trauma as the original act itself. Rather, that

there is more urgent need than ever to think about the cultures of masculinity in India. While there have been good reasons why womens studies departments and many non-governmental organisations have been resistant to including a focus on masculinity as a way of understanding gender, the time is ripe for a change in this attitude. Now, more than ever, we require an understanding of masculine cultures that is informed by feminist methods and perspectives. Gender is always a relationship between women, men (and other genders) and unless we have a sense of how boys are socialised as men, our understanding of the ways in which gender oppression unfolds will always be incomplete.

Socially produced Masculine cultures infuse all significant aspects of modern life and masculinity refers to the socially produced ways of being male. That is to say, men learn to be men and this learning is expressed both in terms of social structures as well as in the ways in which men present themselves in everyday life. So, for example, the idea of mens work and womens work relates to social structure whereas the ways in which men speak, behave, gesture, and interact with other men (as well as women) reflect the behavioural aspects of masculinity. Linked to this is the idea that some ways of being a

man are better than others. These ideas about gender are produced at specific sites, and these might include educational systems, customary laws and regulations, the state and its mechanisms, the family, religious norms and sanctions, popular culture, and, the media. Finally, in this context, it is important to remember that in all societies there exist multiple ways of being a man, but that certain aggressive models of masculinity become dominant. That is to say, masculinity is not just a relationship between men and women, but also between men. Some ways of being a man are considered more manly than others.

The notions of making and producing are crucial to the study of masculine identities, for they point to their historical and social nature. The various discourses of proper masculine behaviour in novels, films, advertisements, for example would be unnecessary if it was a naturally endowed characteristic. The very fact that masculinity must consistently be reinforced if you buy this motorcycle youll be a real man says something about the tenuous and fragile nature of gender identities. It also suggests the possibility of foregrounding alternative models of masculinity. Colonialism

A great deal of neglect of masculinity as an object of study lies in the celebratory ways in which we have tended to understand Indian nationalism which in its reactions to colonial rule produced a deeply masculine culture of modernity. So, if colonists sought to justify colonial rule by suggesting that Indians were not manly enough for either self-rule or rational thinking, nationalists simply inverted argument through providing evidence of Indian masculinity as well as reforming a number of social institutions to more closely reflect European ideas about proper families, intimacies, etc. Colonialism did not, of course, invent Indian

masculinities, but it did help to cement and highlight certain regressive tendencies within it. Swami Vivekanandas masculine photographic-pose was only one aspect of the cult of masculinity encouraged and tolerated by nationalism. Beyond the historical context, masculine bias proliferates itself in a number of areas that have immediate bearing on everyday life. The masculinity of spaces and institutions is one of these. It has become commonplace to understand certain spaces and institutions (say, the street and Parliament) as public, and others (say, the home) as private. The terms public and private have, in turn, become linked to ideas

about the proper realms for men and women. Women are tolerated in public spaces and within public institutions but are expected to behave properly. Otherwise they suffer ridicule and violence. The media quite often provides accounts of public women (say parliamentarians) through describing what they wear, or, how many children they have; womens primary identity continues to be defined through an implicit understanding that public institutions possess (and should possess) a masculine identity. Our legal institutions just as frequently bring to bear masculine bias when dealing with gender-sensitive issues. It is not unusual, therefore, that while judges may express revulsion

towards rape crimes, they may also say something like what was this young woman doing at an icecream parlour at that time of the night? The idea that women frequently contribute to their own ill-treatment through behaving in an inappropriate manner is part of the set of masculine attitudes that characterise a great deal of thinking on gender. In schools Schools are another site where masculine cultures are both produced and refined. Many of us too frequently make the simplistic assumption that there is a direct connection between girls education and womens empowerment. The truth of the

matter is that girls education continues to seen through a masculinity lens: that educated girls will make better mothers, rather than that they might be able to exercise individual autonomy. If on the one hand, schooling can reinforce dominant notions regarding appropriate male and female behaviour, we need also to realise that formal education is an inadequate measure of womens autonomy. We need to move away from masculine notions of the significance of educated women as good wives and mothers. The family and religious customs are two other extremely significant contexts for the making of masculine cultures. The Indian

family has been a long-standing site for reinforcing the most pernicious aspects of masculinity. Our family lives contain elaborate formal and informal means of reinforcing and celebrating male privilege. Sons are brought up to both perpetuate and condone gender hierarchies and are nurtured with a sense of entitlement. It is this that lies at the heart of male violence towards women. Indian family values are contexts of a great deal of jingoistic celebrations about what is special about Indian society. Such jingoism keeps us from turning a critical eye towards what is genuinely rotten within one of the most basic units of social life.

It keeps us from critically examining the masculine cultures that impact upon the relationship between genders. It is important for women and men to protest against the crime of rape. But, it is just as important to ask why such a large number of women have taken to celebrating the KarvaChauth festival, and, why there has been no significant public examination of such rituals of male-worship. (Sanjay Srivastava is professor of Sociology and co-editor, Contributions to Indian Sociology , Institute of Economic Growth, New Delhi.)

The Indian family has been a longstanding site for reinforcing and perpetuating male privilege and entitlementncidence of a condition symptomatic of it January 3, 2013 Taking the aggression out of masculinity Nokia Mobile Phones - Leader In Mobile Device Market. Check New Products In Detail Now! www.Nokia.Com SANJAY SRIVASTAVA

CELEBRATING MANHOOD:Swami Vivekanandas masculine photographic-pose is revealing of how Indian nationalism encouraged a deeply masculine notion of modernity; religious

customs, such as Karva Chauth (right), openly propagate maleworship. PHOTOS: R. SHIVAJI RAO, ROHIT JAIN PARAS Sexual crimes derive from social attitudes and no serious effort at lessening their occurrence can ever depend upon cosmetic measures such as greater policing and calls for the death penalty. This is not to deny either the legitimacy of the anger over the terrible event that led to the recent rape and death of a young woman, or that the Indian justice system frequently subjects rape victims to as much trauma as the original act itself. Rather, that there is more urgent need than ever to think about the cultures of masculinity in India. While there

have been good reasons why womens studies departments and many non-governmental organisations have been resistant to including a focus on masculinity as a way of understanding gender, the time is ripe for a change in this attitude. Now, more than ever, we require an understanding of masculine cultures that is informed by feminist methods and perspectives. Gender is always a relationship between women, men (and other genders) and unless we have a sense of how boys are socialised as men, our understanding of the ways in which gender oppression unfolds will always be incomplete. Socially produced

Masculine cultures infuse all significant aspects of modern life and masculinity refers to the socially produced ways of being male. That is to say, men learn to be men and this learning is expressed both in terms of social structures as well as in the ways in which men present themselves in everyday life. So, for example, the idea of mens work and womens work relates to social structure whereas the ways in which men speak, behave, gesture, and interact with other men (as well as women) reflect the behavioural aspects of masculinity. Linked to this is the idea that some ways of being a man are better than others. These ideas about gender are produced at specific sites, and these might

include educational systems, customary laws and regulations, the state and its mechanisms, the family, religious norms and sanctions, popular culture, and, the media. Finally, in this context, it is important to remember that in all societies there exist multiple ways of being a man, but that certain aggressive models of masculinity become dominant. That is to say, masculinity is not just a relationship between men and women, but also between men. Some ways of being a man are considered more manly than others. The notions of making and producing are crucial to the

study of masculine identities, for they point to their historical and social nature. The various discourses of proper masculine behaviour in novels, films, advertisements, for example would be unnecessary if it was a naturally endowed characteristic. The very fact that masculinity must consistently be reinforced if you buy this motorcycle youll be a real man says something about the tenuous and fragile nature of gender identities. It also suggests the possibility of foregrounding alternative models of masculinity. Colonialism A great deal of neglect of masculinity as an object of study

lies in the celebratory ways in which we have tended to understand Indian nationalism which in its reactions to colonial rule produced a deeply masculine culture of modernity. So, if colonists sought to justify colonial rule by suggesting that Indians were not manly enough for either self-rule or rational thinking, nationalists simply inverted argument through providing evidence of Indian masculinity as well as reforming a number of social institutions to more closely reflect European ideas about proper families, intimacies, etc. Colonialism did not, of course, invent Indian masculinities, but it did help to cement and highlight certain regressive tendencies within it.

Swami Vivekanandas masculine photographic-pose was only one aspect of the cult of masculinity encouraged and tolerated by nationalism. Beyond the historical context, masculine bias proliferates itself in a number of areas that have immediate bearing on everyday life. The masculinity of spaces and institutions is one of these. It has become commonplace to understand certain spaces and institutions (say, the street and Parliament) as public, and others (say, the home) as private. The terms public and private have, in turn, become linked to ideas about the proper realms for men and women. Women are tolerated in public spaces and

within public institutions but are expected to behave properly. Otherwise they suffer ridicule and violence. The media quite often provides accounts of public women (say parliamentarians) through describing what they wear, or, how many children they have; womens primary identity continues to be defined through an implicit understanding that public institutions possess (and should possess) a masculine identity. Our legal institutions just as frequently bring to bear masculine bias when dealing with gender-sensitive issues. It is not unusual, therefore, that while judges may express revulsion towards rape crimes, they may also say something like what was this young woman doing at an ice-

cream parlour at that time of the night? The idea that women frequently contribute to their own ill-treatment through behaving in an inappropriate manner is part of the set of masculine attitudes that characterise a great deal of thinking on gender. In schools Schools are another site where masculine cultures are both produced and refined. Many of us too frequently make the simplistic assumption that there is a direct connection between girls education and womens empowerment. The truth of the matter is that girls education continues to seen through a masculinity lens: that educated

girls will make better mothers, rather than that they might be able to exercise individual autonomy. If on the one hand, schooling can reinforce dominant notions regarding appropriate male and female behaviour, we need also to realise that formal education is an inadequate measure of womens autonomy. We need to move away from masculine notions of the significance of educated women as good wives and mothers. The family and religious customs are two other extremely significant contexts for the making of masculine cultures. The Indian family has been a long-standing site for reinforcing the most pernicious aspects of masculinity.

Our family lives contain elaborate formal and informal means of reinforcing and celebrating male privilege. Sons are brought up to both perpetuate and condone gender hierarchies and are nurtured with a sense of entitlement. It is this that lies at the heart of male violence towards women. Indian family values are contexts of a great deal of jingoistic celebrations about what is special about Indian society. Such jingoism keeps us from turning a critical eye towards what is genuinely rotten within one of the most basic units of social life. It keeps us from critically examining the masculine cultures that impact upon the relationship

between genders. It is important for women and men to protest against the crime of rape. But, it is just as important to ask why such a large number of women have taken to celebrating the KarvaChauth festival, and, why there has been no significant public examination of such rituals of male-worship. (Sanjay Srivastava is professor of Sociology and co-editor, Contributions to Indian Sociology , Institute of Economic Growth, New Delhi.)

The Indian family has been a longstanding site for reinforcing and perpetuating male privilege and entitlementJanuary 4, 2013

Indias refugee policy is an example for the rest of the world to follow Greencard & New Immigrant Greencard insurance worldwide New Immigrants insurance renewable www.rocointernationalmedical.co m/

Antnio GuterresPHOTO: V.V. KRISHNAN NOWHERE PEOPLE:A December 2012 picture of Rohingya refugees under the custody of Malaysian security officials on the Langkawi island after a 15-day boat journey. PHOTO: AFP .

Antnio Guterres, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), who was in New Delhi recently for bilateral consultations, spoke to Smriti Kak Ramachandran about Indias contribution to the protection of displaced people and the situation in Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Afghanistan. Excerpts. How does the UNHCR view the situation of refugees, asylumseekers, stateless persons and the displaced in India? What are your expectations from the Government of India? India, with its history, culture, traditions, is today an example of generosity in the way it has

opened its borders to all people who have come looking for safety and sanctuary. There are Tibetans, Afghans, Myanmarese in India and it has maintained an open-door policy for all. India has a generous approach in relationship to all people and proof of that is the granting of long-term visas and work permits to refugees. We consider India a more reliable partner in the world to guarantee that people who need help will find a place. And more importantly, at a time when there are so many closed borders in the world, and many people have been refused protection, India has been generous.

Can you tell us about the meeting that you had with government officials here and what was the outcome of those talks? We have had several meetings with top government officials, including the Foreign Minister, Salman Khurshid, and the Foreign Secretary. These were discussions, which are part of the bilateral consultations that take place every year. For us, it is important to have Indias contribution in finding ways along with the international community to improve protection of people around the world. We also used the occasion to not only discuss global refugee problems, but to also discuss

regional crises, which are more relevant in todays world, like the Syrian crisis or in countries that are closer to the Indian borders like Myanmar and Afghanistan. At the same time we have discussed how *UNHCR+ can be more useful *to the Indian government+ in relation to the preparation or intensification of voluntary repatriation of refugees to their countries of origin. The number of people going back to Sri Lanka has decreased substantially in the recent past. We need to look into what are the obstacles and how the governments of India and Sri Lanka, working together can improve conditions and create

opportunities for the voluntary repatriation of the people. Voluntary is the keyword here. In your estimation, is the Government of Sri Lanka doing enough to help the displaced people? Are you satisfied with what it has done so far? More needs to be done by the governments of the country of origin, to create conditions for people to feel comfortable about considering the possibility of returning. It has to do with the living conditions, work, education, health, property and security; these are all key questions that need to be addressed for the voluntary repatriation of the people.

It is very important that the governments of the country of origin do everything possible to re-establish the confidence of people. And I hope it will be also possible in the near future to intensify the voluntary repatriation of the Tamils into Sri Lanka. The UNHCR has been running several welfare programmes to support the people who returned and the internally displaced people of Sri Lanka. We are already cooperating with India and ready to intensify our programme in order to offer our contribution to the successful operation of people going back to

their homes whenever possible with safety and dignity. Could you update us on the situation of the Rohingya refugees fleeing Myanmar and a sense of the talks that have taken place, and are likely to take place in the future, with the governments of Myanmar, Bangladesh and India on the issue of the Rohingyas? It is a very serious question and it is very important that effective reconciliation between the communities is promoted inside Myanmar. It is important that the problems of citizenship are solved and the countries of the region follow the example of India that has opened its borders to the Rohingyas and granted them the

same status as it has to the other refugees. It is key to create conditions for effective reconciliation of different communities and to address the citizenship problems in order to ensure that everybody enjoys the basic rights that people are entitled to enjoy. The revolution in Myanmar has given us hope, and many refugees of different minorities who are considered to be part of the Myanmarese State will be able to repatriate in the future. So, we are working with the government of Thailand to support the potential return *and+ in the future of refugees from the South. And there is a meaningful number of

Chin refugees; we discussed the possibility of their future. There has been resettlement of Myanmarese in Thailand, Australia, Canada and the United States. But resettlement will never solve a refugee problem. It is essential that a political solution is found for their plight to end. In the case of Myanmar, we witness with satisfaction that the ceasefire agreements were made with the different rebel groups; we also hope the Rohingya problem that is of a different nature will also be faced positively by the Myanmarese authorities.

Afghan refugees continue to arrive in India and there has been largescale displacement of people. Can you give us an update on what the UNHCR is doing in Afghanistan. We have engaged actively with the governments of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran. A solution/strategy for the Afghan refugees agreed to between the three governments and the UNHRC was presented to the international community, and was approved in Geneva recently. We hope now, there will be support from the same international community in order to make this strategy become a reality. The strategy is based on attracting reintegration in 48 areas

in Afghanistan that were found sufficiently conducive for the return of people. But it requires a lot of support in infrastructure and education, health and conditions for sustaining livelihoods. India is already running the biggest cooperation programme in Afghanistan. Indian involvement is an important factor in trying to create conditions for the country *Afghanistan+ to have a sustainable development. The Indian programme is the largest programme, and as a government that has its own people and its own country to run, nobody can ask India to do more. What is important is that itsJanuary 4, 2013

The rediscovery of protest The Economist Magazine - 12 Issues @ Rs 500 + Full access on iPhone, iPad & Android. Subscribe! www.economistsubscriptions.com VAISHNA ROY

ANGRY INDIA:The absence of any real and active involvement of the masses has diluted public discourse over the years, undermining the quality of our democratic institutions. But the recent protests in Delhi, as seen here at Jantar Mantar, are a step in the right direction. PHOTO: PTI Its close to 20 days after the brutal rape and assault of the

physiotherapy student in Delhi, and the public protests continue in the capital and elsewhere. Hundreds of people are still gathered at Jantar Mantar, some bearing placards, some fasting, some holding candlelight vigil. At the Kochi Muziris Biennale, artist P.S. Jalaja has created a painting of a naked newborn girl with a scarred and mutilated body, screaming silently. Citizens in Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai and Kolkata are still organising marches and sit-ins. The media continues to report the story extensively. If we had to pick the single most important achievement over the last two weeks, it would have to be the cementing of Indias

tentative new discovery of public protest. Over centuries, the average Indian citizen has been famously recognised for his complete apathy, feted as extremely tolerant or slammed as shockingly indifferent. The absence of any real and active involvement of the masses has significantly diluted public discourse over the years, undermining the quality of our much-vaunted democratic institutions. The evolution Its not that we did not know about protest or dont have a history of it. After all, Gandhiji unleashed his brilliantly conceived concepts of Satyagraha , non-

cooperation and civil disobedience right here to great strategic success. Over the years, though, these ideas have been so thoroughly usurped and exploited by political parties that they have ceased to mean anything or move anybody. Protest as a tool in the shape of dharnas , rail rokos and bandhs has been completely owned by the politicians. Now, that could finally be changing. It started roughly five years ago when Jessica Lals killer was acquitted by a trial court. Probably for the first time, Indians across the board were mobilised into protest through a massive SMS and e-mail campaign and relentless media focus, which

finally led to the conviction of Manu Sharma. The next overwhelming mass protest came when Anna Hazare launched his anti-corruption campaign, which saw unprecedented public support. And now, the country has rallied together again for the rape victim. What sets these protests apart is that none of them was initiated or controlled by political parties. They have been spontaneous combustions into which students, homemakers, office-goers, writers and musicians have jumped in. There were no leaders, except for Anna and that to only in Delhi, no politicians amassing the people, shouting slogans or telling them what to do. In that sense, these episodes have possibly given us the most

unfiltered sense of what the ordinary citizen is feeling the anger, frustration and outrage. Middle-class participation The second aspect, widely commented upon during the Anna protests as well, is the participation of the urban middleclass. Reviled for its elitism, its disconnect from the grassroots and its insularity, the middle-class is finally being seen as willing to dirty its hands, to join the fray and face tear-gas, water cannons and lathi charges. The participation in these protests has cut across class barriers, something seldom seen in the countrys public spaces, rigidly as they segregate the economically different.

The Anna protests provoked cynical criticism, and the participation of the middle-class was variously described as selfrighteous, muddled or selfserving. In the ongoing rape riots, too, the public has been condemned for its unrealistic demands for vigilante justice. These comments are warranted but criticising the intellectual quality of the protest should not drown out the celebration of its birth. Of course, the people who marched with Anna were as complicit in bribe-giving and petty corruption as anyone else. Of course, the protesters today are making absurd demands to invoke the death penalty or eliminate due process. It would be

unrealistic to expect the quality of reasoning or logic to be of a high order when the protests are so broad-based. Rather, the fact that they are must be seen for what it is a baby step towards a healthier and far more participative democracy than we have had so far. The sophistication in argument will come later, as Indians get more confident in claiming ownership of decisionmaking. You could attribute Tahrir Square, social media, or the blanket coverage by TV channels to giving Indians this voice, but that they are now demanding to be heard could possibly mark the biggest challenge to the well-entrenched notions of governance that the

ruling class has peddled so far. During the Anna movement, one of the most insidious arguments that made the rounds was how the parliamentary form of government already represented the people well enough and that it was, therefore, somehow illegitimate to take to the streets. We have strong oil, mining, telecom and other pressure groups that influence policymaking extensively. Such pressure groups are recognised as playing a legitimate role in a parliamentary democracy. Now, ordinary citizens have decided to lobby loudly for reforms in areas such as policing or justice that affect them deeply. In short, they are learning to assert themselves and its high time they did. This is the role of

civil society in a mature democracy to put pressure on the government for positive action. [email protected] example is followed by international community.

the

January 4, 2013 The rediscovery of protest The Economist Magazine - 12 Issues @ Rs 500 + Full access on iPhone, iPad & Android. Subscribe! www.economistsubscriptions.com VAISHNA ROY

ANGRY INDIA:The absence of any real and active involvement of the

masses has diluted public discourse over the years, undermining the quality of our democratic institutions. But the recent protests in Delhi, as seen here at Jantar Mantar, are a step in the right direction. PHOTO: PTI Its close to 20 days after the brutal rape and assault of the physiotherapy student in Delhi, and the public protests continue in the capital and elsewhere. Hundreds of people are still gathered at Jantar Mantar, some bearing placards, some fasting, some holding candlelight vigil. At the Kochi Muziris Biennale, artist P.S. Jalaja has created a painting of a naked newborn girl with a scarred and mutilated body, screaming silently. Citizens in

Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai and Kolkata are still organising marches and sit-ins. The media continues to report the story extensively. If we had to pick the single most important achievement over the last two weeks, it would have to be the cementing of Indias tentative new discovery of public protest. Over centuries, the average Indian citizen has been famously recognised for his complete apathy, feted as extremely tolerant or slammed as shockingly indifferent. The absence of any real and active involvement of the masses has significantly diluted public discourse over the years, undermining the quality of our

much-vaunted institutions. The evolution

democratic

Its not that we did not know about protest or dont have a history of it. After all, Gandhiji unleashed his brilliantly conceived concepts of Satyagraha , noncooperation and civil disobedience right here to great strategic success. Over the years, though, these ideas have been so thoroughly usurped and exploited by political parties that they have ceased to mean anything or move anybody. Protest as a tool in the shape of dharnas , rail rokos and bandhs has been completely owned by the

politicians. Now, that could finally be changing. It started roughly five years ago when Jessica Lals killer was acquitted by a trial court. Probably for the first time, Indians across the board were mobilised into protest through a massive SMS and e-mail campaign and relentless media focus, which finally led to the conviction of Manu Sharma. The next overwhelming mass protest came when Anna Hazare launched his anti-corruption campaign, which saw unprecedented public support. And now, the country has rallied together again for the rape victim. What sets these protests apart is that none of them was initiated or controlled by political

parties. They have been spontaneous combustions into which students, homemakers, office-goers, writers and musicians have jumped in. There were no leaders, except for Anna and that to only in Delhi, no politicians amassing the people, shouting slogans or telling them what to do. In that sense, these episodes have possibly given us the most unfiltered sense of what the ordinary citizen is feeling the anger, frustration and outrage. Middle-class participation The second aspect, widely commented upon during the Anna protests as well, is the participation of the urban middleclass. Reviled for its elitism, its

disconnect from the grassroots and its insularity, the middle-class is finally being seen as willing to dirty its hands, to join the fray and face tear-gas, water cannons and lathi charges. The participation in these protests has cut across class barriers, something seldom seen in the countrys public spaces, rigidly as they segregate the economically different. The Anna protests provoked cynical criticism, and the participation of the middle-class was variously described as selfrighteous, muddled or selfserving. In the ongoing rape riots, too, the public has been condemned for its unrealistic demands for vigilante justice. These comments are warranted

but criticising the intellectual quality of the protest should not drown out the celebration of its birth. Of course, the people who marched with Anna were as complicit in bribe-giving and petty corruption as anyone else. Of course, the protesters today are making absurd demands to invoke the death penalty or eliminate due process. It would be unrealistic to expect the quality of reasoning or logic to be of a high order when the protests are so broad-based. Rather, the fact that they are must be seen for what it is a baby step towards a healthier and far more participative democracy than we have had so far. The sophistication in argument will come later, as Indians get more confident in

claiming ownership of decisionmaking. You could attribute Tahrir Square, social media, or the blanket coverage by TV channels to giving Indians this voice, but that they are now demanding to be heard could possibly mark the biggest challenge to the well-entrenched notions of governance that the ruling class has peddled so far. During the Anna movement, one of the most insidious arguments that made the rounds was how the parliamentary form of government already represented the people well enough and that it was, therefore, somehow illegitimate to take to the streets. We have strong oil, mining, telecom and other pressure

groups that influence policymaking extensively. Such pressure groups are recognised as playing a legitimate role in a parliamentary democracy. Now, ordinary citizens have decided to lobby loudly for reforms in areas such as policing or justice that affect them deeply. In short, they are learning to assert themselves and its high time they did. This is the role of civil society in a mature democracy to put pressure on the government for positive action. [email protected]

Indians are shrugging off their apathy and now demanding to be heard by their rulers

January 4, 2013 Conquering the fear of the setting sun Luxury Apartments, Kochi - Near Seaport-Airport Road & Lulu Mall! Starts From 17.5 Lac. Enquire www.NestInfratech.com RAVINDER KAUR

One of my distinct memories of growing up in Delhi involves the everyday spectre of a setting sun. My mother, worried about my safety when I started at university in the early 1990s, made me promise that I would always return home before dark. The home-before-sunset wasnt a rule as such but a safety measure that was followed by most of my

female friends, acquaintances and neighbours. It was neither questioned nor explained. The routine was so deeply ingrained that rushing home before dark seemed like a matter of commonsense. For most of the female residents of the city, the dying glow in the sky marked the temporal limits before which to conclude their share of public activities. An elderly neighbour used to call it Lakshman Rekha the invisible boundary drawn by Ramas brother Lakshman to protect Sita which women must obey for their own safety. It was, as if, an informal state of curfew was imposed daily after sunset on one half of the population. Curfew

The brutal gang rape and eventual murder of a young woman in Delhi two weeks ago have tragically fore-grounded this state of curfew and question of womens full right to access public spaces. More importantly, it has disclosed not only the gendered but also the classed nature of denial of this right. The section of female population that is most dependent on public goods such as means of transport is also the more underprivileged and vulnerable one. These women can neither retreat into the increasingly privatised world of the mobile middle class mobile in every sense of the word nor can they opt-out of public services whenever they choose to. At a

moment when public participation and prominence of women are growing in a range of fields, it has become possible to imagine the irrelevance of moral codes of patriarchy, especially in urban contexts. But what is central to this imagination is the access to mobility, including mobility in its most mundane form: physical mobility that allows one to travel from one place to another. A large population of women who are outside the orbit of middle class affluence, experience the lack of safe means of transport as suspension of their public movement after dark. The curfew may or may not always result from imposition of patriarchal values, but it surely emanates from the lack of womens safe

access to public goods such as buses and local trains. Thus, far from being an elite preoccupation, the struggle for something as basic as having equal access to public spaces as men at all hours is an everyday struggle that women without resources feel more acutely than their privileged counterparts. Class, gender and mobility These connections between class, gender and mobility in public spaces became apparent in the death of the unnamed young woman. Even as outrage and swift condemnation of this crime became widespread, the social media was astir with a cacophony of voices. The expression of

sympathy was mixed with questions as to why she was travelling late at night (even when escorted) while others flagged her ill-judgment at not having taken enough safety precautions in a city termed as the rape capital. In some ways, these voices were echoing the logic of the perpetrators a woman who has transgressed her boundaries and risked venturing into a space that she is not supposed to be in is a fair game. Even while empathising with her, some commentators on various online discussions could not understand why the couple chose to take a bus home at that late hour. The fact that most likely they did not have a choice did not even occur as a possibility. Probably the middle class readers

of English language newspapers could not really imagine an evening out predicated on the logistics of unreliable means of public transport. The moment the news of the gang rape was broken in the media was also the moment of, what we may call, class confusion, among commentators, reporters and eventually protesters. The well meaning observers instantly identified them as belonging to the middle class and underscored that this atrocity may happen to any of us. In the absence of details, the markers that helped associate the couple with us or the privileged sections of middle class probably were, one, the upscale cinema complex they had

visited; two, the location of the bus stop in the heart of South Delhi from where they boarded the bus; and three, the very fact that the young couple had been on an evening out seeking entertainment and pleasure. The everyday acts of consumption and pleasure-seeking in the city are what define this actual and aspirational class identity to some extent. The unnamed woman and her companion later turned out to belong to the aspiring section of society whose mobility depends on safe public services. The class confusion, however, did help turn personal empathy into public protests the kind of public outpouring that remains missing in the rapes of tribals, Dalits and poor women.

The gang rape ultimately opened an almost alien world for the upwardly mobile middle class a world where it is not possible to simply secede from public goods and services. The city is lived and experienced very differently by men and women, the privileged and the unprivileged. Yet the dominant narrative is woven around the middle class which is said to be the prime motor of growth in a post-reform nation that increasingly sees itself as a global player. The gains of economic liberalisation can be witnessed in new consumption patterns as well as in concrete forms of massive infrastructure building in urban centres. The cityscape itself has altered with

new public spaces shopping malls, multiplex cinemas, coffee shops that primarily attract youth population. Even as the range and form of public spaces expand, the city itself has become more segregated than ever before. Increasingly, the affluent either inhabit privatised realms of new gated colonies or enclose existing residential localities with security and entry restrictions. And all those who can afford tend to use private means of transport rather than public. The introduction of metro rail in Delhi has by no means diminished the status attached to the ownership of a private car. Near-absence

It is in this new classed realm of public/private discrepancies that we need to address the old questions of gendered curfews and the safety of women. In reformed India, it is not female mobility which is under curfew as such, rather that of underprivileged women whose safe mobility remains at stake. Despite the initial middle class enthusiasm for the shiny metro, the primary users of public transport are largely those who lack resources to enter the private zones of mobility. The near absence of women in buses and metro becomes acutely visible at night time. The curfew a voluntary imposition comes into force in these public spaces where few remaining women

passengers are either looked at with sympathy (encouraged to hurry home) or with intimidation. The city turns into an alienating, intimidating place particularly for those outside the comfort zone of private mobility. Patriarchal values are reinforced by the state which often advises women to refrain from risky behaviour of travelling after dark for their own good. This advice was most recently offered by a high ranking police officer who also suggested that women should not travel at night, and if they do, they arm themselves with chilli powder to combat potential criminals. The Chief Minister of Delhi, Sheila Dikshit, is also known for believing that women should

not be so adventurous so as to stay outside past midnight. In short, the government perpetuates the idea that the outside is not a legitimate space for women to occupy. The solution for women is obviously to not retreat but occupy the outside if the fear of the setting sun is ever to be conquered. This involves as much demanding adequate lights, security in public spaces as challenging patriarchal values. And this also demands class solidarity from those women who have seceded into a privatised world of new India.

(Ravinder Kaur is Director, Centre of Global South Asian Studies, University of Copenhagen)

The struggle for something as basic as equal access to public spaces as men at all hours is an everyday ordeal that women without resources feel more acutely January 5, 2013 Non-state actors who bring nations closer Online IAS Preparation - Complete Material,250 Unit Tests 16 All India Tests with analysis www.byjusclasses.com PETER JONES

A controversy erupted recently over Track Two discussions regarding the Siachen issue. Track Two Diplomacy is a term with which much mythology is associated. Some proponents believe that it can cut through the red tape of conventional diplomacy and resolve intractable problems. Critics argue that it is both a useless waste of time and a sinister plot to induce guileless Indians to sell out national interests often the critics make these contradictory arguments in the same breath. A mechanism In reality, Track Two is neither a silver bullet nor is it a plot to

undermine the state. It is simply a mechanism to bring together people from different sides of a conflict to talk about issues and try to develop new ideas. The term Track Two Diplomacy was first coined by Joseph Montville in 1981, who noted an increasing number of unofficial conflict-resolution dialogues taking place around the world. He wanted to give them a name and noted that, if official diplomacy was Track One, then unofficial diplomacy might be called Track Two. In my view, a fundamental mistake was made by adding the word diplomacy. It conveys the idea that this is somehow a diplomatic activity. It is not. Diplomacy is reserved strictly for

those who represent the state. People engaged in Track Two do not represent the state and should not try to. What they are there to do is to try to work with people from the other side to develop new ideas and understandings around how a dispute may be settled. Track Two processes have been highly active, with mixed results, from the Oslo process in the Middle East, to the informal talks which helped break the impasse in Northern Ireland, to the first contacts between the African National Congress and the former government of South Africa. A scan of the literature reveals a number of terms including:

Controlled Communication; Inter-active Conflict Resolution; Circum-negotiation; Multi-track Diplomacy; Inter-active Problem Solving and many others. Each has its subtle nuances. These concepts, and others, tend to share characteristics which define Track Two in practice: they emphasise small, informal dialogues, which the literature refers to as Problem Solving Workshops, between people from the various sides of a conflict, which are often facilitated by an impartial Third Party; though the dialogues are unofficial, it is generally expected that the participants will be able

to influence the development of thinking in their societies on the conflict; the dialogues are not meant to debate the current positions of the sides, but rather are workshops where the participants step back from official positions to explore the underlying causes of the dispute in the hope of jointly developing alternative ideas; the dialogues are ongoing processes, rather than one-off workshops; and while not exactly secret, the dialogues are conducted quietly and the Chatham House Rule is applied to create an atmosphere where outside-the-box thinking

can flourish and participants are not afraid to propose and explore ideas that could not be entertained by an official process or one in which exchanges might be repeated in the press. Such processes, if successful, can lead to a number of results. Amongst these are: changed perceptions of the conflict and the other, including a greater appreciation for the complexities, domestic politics and red-lines of the other side; opening new channels for communication between adversaries who had few other means of communicating;

 the identification and development of new options for future negotiation; the creation of communities of experts who have developed possible new approaches to the issue under discussion; and the development of networks of influential people who work to change views in their countries. A key to successful Track Two is that the participants be able transfer the ideas developed in such meetings into the official sphere. This is harder than it seems. Officials are instinctively wary of ideas coming from outside the bureaucracy, sometimes with good reason (Track Two can

complicate the lives of officials), and sometimes because they fear the loss of control over an issue more than they are prepared to accept ideas that come from outside. Thus, Track Two often enlists as participants people who have connections to the official world (often retired senior officials). The objective is to have people at the table who have credibility in the official world and are familiar with how things are done there, but who have also the luxury of being able to think outside the box as they are no longer officials themselves. Creating ripe moments

When and if a Track Two process comes up with a new proposal or idea, such influential people have the credibility in official circles to gain the idea a hearing. But there is no guarantee of acceptance. Ideas developed in Track Two often enjoy the most traction if they happen to come along at those rare moments when the system is looking for new approaches, sometimes known as ripe moments. More subtly, however, Track Two can work quietly to help create such ripe moments by demonstrating that new thinking is possible and developing cadres of credible people who advocate the consideration of new approaches.

But the reliance on such influentials carries with it potential problems. First, there are not many of them to go around and Track Two can be dominated by a small elite who are too similar in their thinking. Indeed, some proponents of Track Two argue that efforts should be made specifically to avoid overreliance on the usual suspects in order to create a platform where really independent thinking can take place. This leads to the second problem, known in the Track Two world as the Autonomy Dilemma. This dilemma holds that, on the one hand, reliance on influential elites means that results can be more easily transferred to the official

process (because the Track Two participants are trusted and have access), but outside the box thinking may be in short supply. On the other hand, gathering a really autonomous group which has few connections to government can lead to more independent thinking, but the ability of such processes to transfer their results to the inner sanctum is limited because the participants are not known or trusted by officials. There is no easy answer to the problem posed by the Autonomy Dilemma, other than for practitioners of Track Two to be aware of it and constantly work to make sure that the discussions do not degenerate into an exchange of official positions.

Funding, a critical issue Another critical issue is funding. Though the sums involved are small, support for airfares and other meeting costs is required. Traditionally, Track Two has been funded by major foundations and by some governments, such as the Scandinavians and the Americans. This sometimes leads to concerns that undue influence is being exerted. At the end of the day, the integrity of the Third Party depends on not accepting support if the funder demands conditions, and on being scrupulously open and honest about who is funding the exercise. It must be made clear to the funders by the Third Party that support will only be

accepted if the process will be organised in ways which meet with the approval of the regional participants. Third Parties who act as agents of others quickly gain a reputation for untrustworthiness and are unable to continue. This is sometimes one of the most difficult things for critics of Track Two to grasp, but the process cannot work any other way. The question of how close a Track Two should be to official diplomacy also causes confusion between genuine Track Two and so-called Backchannel Diplomacy. The two are often used as synonyms for each other, but they are different, and should be kept conceptually and practically separate. Backchannel

diplomacy is essentially official talks between governments, but conducted quietly and at arms length. But the key is that those around the table are under instructions from their governments and are sent there by governments to discuss an issue. Track Two, as noted, features influential people, but they are not there on behalf of their governments or with any instructions and should never act as though they are. This difference, though subtle, is critical and leads to enormous confusion. Track Two projects are sometimes accused of being secret negotiations. All sorts of conspiracy theories can be hatched that a backchannel is

operating in which secret deals have been struck on sensitive issues. To some extent, the confusion may be legitimate, but it may also be the product of some who want to deliberately obscure the line between Track Two and Backchannel in order to discredit new ideas with which they simply disagree. (Peter Jones is an Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa, who both studies and runs Track Two projects. He is currently facilitating a South Asian Track Two process known as the Ottawa Dialogue.)

Track Two thinking

encourages

new

and develops cadres of credible people who advocate new ideas for governments to consider January 5, 2013 From Oxford to Hyderabad GoIbibo Official Website - Get Flat Rs 800 OFF on All Domestic flights. Code "FLT800". Book Now! goibibo.com/discount_code ABBAS ALI BAIG

PRINCELY STYLE:Pataudi pulling Ashley Mallet for four during his innings of 95, in the First Test between India and Australia at Bombays Brabourne Stadium on November 5, 1969.PHOTO: THE HINDU PHOTO ARCHIVES Abbas Ali BaigPHOTO: K. RAMESH BABU Tiger Pataudis exploits on the cricket field and his contribution to the game have been appropriately analysed, extolled and documented: everyone agrees that quite apart from mere statistics, he brought to the game a certain charm, a dignity, and to Indian cricket itself a self-belief sorely lacking hitherto.

Adding to his mystique was the unfortunate mishap that occurred in the infancy of his prime while he was mercilessly pulverizing opposing bowlers. It would seem that God, in doing a review of his largesse to mankind, felt that he may have been a trifle overgenerous in Tigers case and sensing that this could disrupt a level playing field, decided to deprive him the benefit of one eye. Anyway, back among mortals, Tiger still excelled, proving to the world that any disability is only as daunting as we make it out to be. Tiger Pataudi was already a familiar name much before he set foot on the Parks. We knew of his achievements at Winchester and the fact that he was already

enrolled by Sussex. There was huge excitement and anticipation. At first sight in the nets his technique seemed a little unconventional as his bat started its descent from the gully position surprising for a boy from an English public school where there is such great emphasis on technique. However, we soon discovered that at the moment of contact, Tigers bat straightened out magically and his eye and foot coordination was such that he was able to choose where to despatch the ball earlier than most batsmen. Another unusual facet of batting appeared to be inclination to loft the ball, audacity not recommended his his an to

young batsmen in England. Sure enough, he set about scoring piles of runs. For me, two of his memorable knocks were centuries at Lords, one against Sonny Ramadhin (much retired but turning out for an MCC side) and in the Varsity match later on. As far as I can recall, he went on to equal my record for highest number of runs scored in a season at the Parks and then proceeded to beat his fathers mark for runs obtained during an entire Oxford season. Then the unfortunate accident happened. We were returning to our hotel after a hard days play against Sussex at Hove; Tiger decided at the very last moment to get out of the team van and travel with our

wicketkeeper, Robin Waters, whose little car had a collision with an oncoming vehicle in a cut in the road. There was a loud sound and when we rushed to the site, we found Tiger lying on the ground by the car. He did not appear in any great discomfort, rubbed his eyes a bit and proceeded back to the hotel. It was only the next morning that he started to feel the hurt and the doctor pronounced that a glass splinter had got lodged in his eye and required to be surgically removed. Alas, it turned out to be more serious than anybody had initially thought and a brilliant career was temporarily thwarted. At Oxford, his interest in studies was minimal which prompted one

curious colleague to ask him what he would be doing post-Oxford. His reply was on expected lines: I wont have to be doing anything; you see, I am a Nawab, and I think that for a major part of his life he actually believed this dictum: a Nawab should sit back and things would get done for him. He would join us at the lovely Oxford pubs, but was generally reserved except in the company of a chosen few. He had this aura of aloofness about him which erroneously created the impression of haughtiness and arrogance. At the end of his first season, E.W. Swanton asked the two of us to join his international team for a tour of the West Indies. In

Barbados, we were put up in a rather luxurious house and on returning from a late party found to our horror the gates locked. We barely managed to climb in (thanks to the practice at Oxford), only to find two huge dogs blocking the path to our room. This was the first time I got to see Tigers unbelievable athleticism as we both ran for our lives and barely escaped those nasty jaws. We also knew Tiger as essentially a mans man not much given to socializing and partying. I was therefore taken aback once when in the middle of a dance with a very pretty girl, I felt my shoulder being tapped. I turned around to find Tiger doing the tag and was both surprised and delighted. I believe that was the beginning of

Tigers social transformation and since that day there was no looking back. He was always discreet, gallant and a perfect gentleman where his lady friends were concerned. Back at Oxford, he was chosen captain, scoring over several senior players. The same thing happened when he became Indias captain a little later. Both instances were seemingly preordained. At the start, he did not appear to be a thinking captain and was rather mechanical in his running of the game, but with experience he became one of Indias best captains and brought oodles of self-belief and pride in a team not lacking in ability but hugely in

confidence. The use of spin as a potent force was his legacy as he set about repairing several other shortcomings in the players psyche. Imagine our utter surprise when one day in the 1965-66 season we found the captain of India sitting in a corner of the Hyderabad dressing room. This was in our match against Andhra. Surely he should have been playing for the Delhi team somewhere in north India? It soon came to light that our captain Jaisimha, a great buddy of Tigers, and Mr. Ghulam Ahmed, a respected Board official, had contrived to bring about this switch. Hyderabad was not strange to Tiger as two of his sisters lived there and he had

many friends who were not necessarily cricket related. He settled down immediately and gelled beautifully with the rest of the team. On our long train journeys, travelling third class, and in periodic recesses from the never-ending card sessions, his man-for-all-seasons, Kishen, would produce out of thin air a harmonium set which Tiger would proceed to play reasonably skilfully while intermittently breaking into some strange versions of an Indian dance. Time would pass most congenially. During home games, the days game done, we would gather for a drink in our dressing room, members of the opposing team often joining in, and then proceed

in due course to Jaisimhas house for some sumptuous south Indian cuisine. Far from being reserved, Tiger was an eager participant in all the jollity and would join in the ensuing discussions regarding the days play and tactics to be adopted for the following day. Away from home, the bonhomie would be even more pronounced; pranks were aplenty with Tiger the source of many of them (my neck ties would suddenly disappear just prior to an official function). The teams spirit was exemplified in the rather bizarre scenario when the captain of the countrys team was playing under someone else and then captaining the same individual a few days later in a

Test match. It was a happy team full of talented cricketers like Govindraj, Jayantilal, Krishnamurthy, Mumtaz Hussain and seniors like Jaisimha, Abid Ali, Habeeb Ahmed, Tiger and myself. There was hardly any curfew and after a days play in Bangalore a venerable member of the team, Santosh Reddy, was found in the wee hours of the morning perched on a well-trimmed hedge outside our hotel reciting Churchills We shall fight them on the beaches speech, heartily cheered by Tiger and others. Little wonder then that we did not win the Ranji trophy despite our playing capabilities! But if there were to be a trophy for the team which had maximum fun playing the

game both on and off the field, we would have won it. During our courting days in Mumbai, Tiger and I used to see a great deal of each other. Once we were back in Delhi after retirement, these meetings became fewer though we knew that in a crisis we were only a phone call away. From time to time I would get a call seeking advice regarding a cricketing matter or help writing a speech. Towards the end, he would complain about difficulty in breathing and this indeed led him to hospital for his final journey. When I saw him in the ICU the day he died, he was barely able to speak and looked confused and helpless, doubtless knowing that

though he had fought and come out winner in many battles before, this battle was different and unwinnable. (Excerpt from Pataudi: Nawab of Cricket . Published by HarperCollins India. Edited by Suresh Menon. Foreword by Sharmila Tagore.)

The use of spin as a potent force was his legacy as he set about repairing several other shortcomings in the players psyche.

Tiger Pataudi, who would have turned 72 today, was one of Indias best captains, bringing selfbelief and pride to a team that had plenty of ability but little confidence January 5, 2013 To the woman warrior I did not know Luxury Apartments, Kochi - Near CUSAT, Kalamassery. Starts @ Rs 17.5 Lac. Top Amenities. Enquire www.NestInfratech.com MONSOON BISSELL

FOR CHANGE:As our tribute to you, we are not going to be shamed into keeping quiet and holding ourselves responsible for

the violence we endure. Students register their protest in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh. PHOTO: T. VIJAYA KUMAR I heard you fought to protect yourself. I heard that your fight back caused them to get more violent and brutalise you further. I heard you never gave up. I heard you said you wanted to live. As I write this I clench my thighs together because the torture you were subjected to could have happened to any woman. I am so sorry that our worst fear became your reality. You didnt live but you have brought so many of us to life apathetic bystanders of all kinds have begun to care and participate. Your presence in this world has changed all our lives

forever. Yet, I am left with a sense of loss and pain that you were sacrificed at this altar so our complacent spirits could be resurrected. At 23, I am sure you had other dreams. Maybe you wanted to be remembered for what you did of your own free will rather than what was done to you. Maybe you just wanted to live simply, laugh with your male friends, wander with your girlfriends, watch TV with your family, become a medical professional who served all people regardless of how they valued women. At 23, you have come to symbolise our struggle the collective and individual desperation we all feel. In my small way, I want to honour you

by writing about breaking the silence. Silence = Death. This slogan was used by holocaust victims, the gay community adopted it and now we, Indian women like you, have to embrace this message. Enough. No more silence. Rape is death and let no one tell us differently. It kills a way of life. It often kills a spirit. You did not let them murder yours and all of us stood in solidarity with you. Women all over this country have risen and shouted out. Some men have joined the chorus, and now we have found a collective energy. We cannot lose this momentum, this commitment, this chance at another life. You have given a voice to those of us who feel our

screams like yours in that bus have never been heard. We are the ones who have stayed in homes where we are beaten and raped by men who either gave birth to us or ones we married. We are the women who have been molested in front of a whole crowd and found not one who would bear witness. We are the ones whose teachers have taught us life lessons by betraying our trust. My horror As our tribute to you, we are not going to be shamed into keeping quiet and holding ourselves responsible for the violence we endure. I must break my silence

before I ask others to do the same. I was 15 years old and walking with two male friends in the lane behind my house when I was attacked by seven men. Other than with a trusted few I have spoken about it only once at a gathering hundreds of miles from where it occurred. After 25 years, you have given me the courage to bring this home and say it out loud here. It was 9:30 at night and we wanted to take a break from studying for the board exams. I had a bounce in my step, I threw back my head as I laughed, I felt at home in my body. Maybe that is what evoked their rage. It was not desire. It was an act of aggression. Their words were mean, their

actions terrifying. I was very lucky that their ring leader lost his balance as he rammed his bicycle into my abdomen for the second time. It created an opening that let me flee. The split second break in that menacing circle saved my life. I wish your bus door had swung open too. I know you would have been saved from this savagery and you would have lived. Familys support Your father may have been like mine. He believed in your right to be equal. He sold his land in order to educate you in a culture that only approves of land being sold for a sons future or a daughters dowry. Mine too broke tradition

by insisting I not stay silent and take back my power. He and my grandfather put me between them and took me out that very night looking for the perpetrators. They insisted I take this action so that I would not be afraid to walk the streets I grew up in. We never found them. I am like hundreds of women who have endured this and far worse. We have all fought our internal battles and some brave ones have taken bolder steps. Because of the men in my life who supported and celebrated me, I did not walk away feeling less than. I want every woman to live in the company of such men. Sadly, many do not. However privileged and emancipated I may feel, I am also well aware of my vulnerability a vulnerability that

makes us different from men. We live out that vulnerability every day and are constantly told to protect ourselves stay out of harms way. I see that logic when we are taught to avoid playing with fire. How do we avoid sharing our world with men? How is it that they dont get the message that their unwanted attention burns? Who is telling them that there are no excuses. None of it is acceptable not the leering on the streets or the unsavoury office banter, not the pinching on the bus or the groping at protest rallies. It always starts in a small way and only escalates when the perpetrator sees his actions endorsed or excused.

As a culture we are still preaching to our girls not to push the boundaries and protecting our boys when they overstep them we give them a pass for making a pass. It creates a type of entitlement that is so deeply ingrained that what they cannot get they destroy. I am tired of hearing that if we as women circumscribe our lives further, kill our individuality more, suppress our natural desires, stop believing in the right to live as we choose and stay locked up, we will be safe. Imprisoning us isnt the answer and is no longer possible. Women like you are the change that Gandhiji spoke of and this fight for independence is causing men to find beastly forms of suppression.

The entire nation is mourning your loss a woman we did not know. Your power is far greater than what those men expected it to be. May your passing bring with it a change that sweeps across this country and makes it a place where other women like you can ride buses and make it home alive. (Monsoon Bissell is a life coach and freelance writer, developing a project called Narrative Healing.)

You have given us the courage to say: Enough, no more silence. January 7, 2013

Where buying a motorcycle can spark a riot SRM University- India No1 Admissions for 2013 SRM Engineering Download or Apply Online Now! www.srmuniv.ac.in/applications S. ANANDHI M. VIJAYABASKAR

CHANGING EQUATIONS:Dalit houses that were damaged at Naikkan Kottai in Dharmapuri, Tamil Nadu. PHOTO: E. LAKSHMI NARAYANAN In the recent violence against the Dalits in Dharmapuri district in Tamil Nadu, about 300 of their houses were burnt down and

other properties destroyed by the Vanniars, a numerically strong intermediate caste, sections of whom have been economically stagnant. The immediate cause for the rampage was a Vanniar womans marriage to a Dalit youth and the consequent suicide of the womans father. However, the large-scale and systematic destruction of Dalit properties was a result of the simmering discontent against the upward mobility of the Dalits. The growing intolerance of the intermediate castes towards this economic mobility of the Dalits is not confined to Dharmapuri district alone. In the last two decades, 11 districts in the State have witnessed similar destruction

of Dalit property as part of caste violence. There are two aspects to this Dalit mobility and the resultant violence against them. One is the declining of role of agriculture in rural Tamil Nadu and its impact on the social and economic relations within villages. The second is the specific ways in which the changing economic relations have been negotiated through altered caste and gender relations posing challenges to the intermediate castes pre-existing power. Younger workforce Across Tamil Nadu, the role of agriculture in sustaining rural livelihoods has dramatically declined with non-farm

employment increasingly playing a significant role. A recent survey of rural households in four districts in the State done by the Institute of Development Alternatives, Chennai reveals that only 28 per cent of households rely on agriculture solely for their livelihood. In the remainder, at least one member of the household was engaged in nonagricultural employment, ranging from construction work to a range of manufacturing sector jobs. This resonates strongly with the observations made about the commuting worker in contemporary rural and urban landscapes. In Tamil Nadu alone, more than 72 lakh workers commuted from rural areas to work in non-agricultural sectors.

This mobility is highly gendered with the age profile indicating the emergence of a young male workforce. This mobility has been accompanied by a new mobility of capital too. Studies indicate a growing ruralisation of the formal manufacturing sector in the last 15 years, with its output increasingly coming from the rural areas even as urban manufacturing employment is becoming more informal. Impact of manufacturing It is in this context that one needs to understand Dalit mobility in parts of Tamil Nadu. The spread of a range of manufacturing activity in small towns in Tamil Nadu and its diffusion into the nearby

villages have spawned new ruralurban and rural-rural mobilities and a move into manufacturing and service sector jobs among Dalit youth, particularly in the northern and north-western districts. This mobility has also been backed by investments in education albeit of a limited kind. The move away from traditional agricultural work has undermined the control that the intermediate castes could wield on Dalit youth. Fieldwork in villages adjoining and housing textile and clothing factories in the Coimbatore and Tiruppur districts, and shoe factories in Vellore district reveal not only a striking shift from agricultural work among the Dalit youth, but also a strong reluctance

among them to take up agricultural work. The mobility beyond the village has enabled Dalit youth to challenge their traditional caste obligations and the masculine powers of the dominant castes. The refusal of Dalit women to perform menial duties for intermediate castes, the refusal of the younger generation of Dalits to labour in the lands of intermediate castes and to perform caste obligations such as funeral drumming combined with relative improvements in their every day existence have become the source of conflicts between the Dalits and the intermediate castes in the State. The inability and reluctance of sections of intermediate castes to make a shift from agriculture

despite its non profitability due to strong social values attached to agriculture, their inability to force the castes below them to work on their farms and their lack of control over the mobility of Dalit youth have underwritten their caste anxieties. Masculine power Further, caste dominance is contingent upon the masculine power of men, their ability to control women in private and public spheres and also their ability to control the subordinate men of oppressed castes. With the challenge posed to their caste dominance, the intermediate castes find their masculinity in crisis since they are unable to

exert power over the subaltern Dalit men and women. They also imagine an erosion of their masculine power in the private sphere with their claim that Dalit men lure away their women. The crisis of intermediate caste masculinity, which is the result of the economic mobility of the Dalits, is certainly at the core of these conflicts and the caste violence which targets Dalit properties. Otherwise, how can one explain the fact that invariably during the caste violence in recent times, motorbikes owned by the Dalits, a symbol of masculine mobility, have been targeted by the intermediate castes who desire to imitate the erstwhile dominant castes in their starched

white dhotis moving on Enfield motorbikes! (The writers are Associate and Assistant Professors at the Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai.)

Refusal by Dalits to work as agricultural labour and to perform menial duties plus their relative economic improvement have made them the targets of caste violence January 7, 2013 Why a national water framework law Women Leadership Program - For Women Leaders in Asia. 5 Days @NUS Business School. Apply! executive-education.nus.edu

RAMASWAMY R. IYER

The idea of a national water framework law mooted by the Central government has run into strong opposition from the Chief Ministers of several States. The aim of this article is to clarify the issues involved for the information of the general public. I am obliged to strike a personal note here, for reasons which will become clear as this article proceeds. So far as I know, I was the first person in this country to talk about a national law on water, more than 10 years ago, and the first to use the term national water framework law.

The idea made no headway at all until the Planning Commission, as part of the preparations for the 12th Plan, set up a number of working groups and sub-groups, including a sub-group on a national water framework law with me as chairman and five other members. We produced a complete draft of the law that we were advocating. It is available on the website of the Planning Commission (http://planningcommission.gov.in /aboutus/committee/wrkgrp12/w r/wg_wtr_frame.pdf). Alagh Committee That draft was not adopted by the Ministry of Water Resources, but it did accept the idea , picked up

the term framework law, and set up a new committee to draft the law under the chairmanship of Dr. Y. K. Alagh. That committee has presumably not yet concluded its deliberations, but meanwhile the idea of a national water framework law appears to have been mentioned at a Conference of Water Resources Ministers as well as the recent NDC meeting, and has drawn a negative response. That response is regrettable. A national law on water is very necessary, and it must be a framework law. Why is a national law on water necessary? There are several reasons.

(1) Under the Indian Constitution water is primarily a State subject, but it is an increasingly important national concern in the context of: (a) the judicial recognition of the right to water as a part of the fundamental right to life; (b) the general perception of an imminent water crisis, and the dire and urgent need to conserve this scarce and precious resource; (c) the severe and intractable inter-use and inter-State conflicts; (d) the pollution of rivers and other water sources, turning rivers into sewers or poison and contaminating aquifers;

(e) the long-term environmental, ecological and social implications of projects to augment the availability of water for human use; (f) the equity implications of the distribution, use and control of water; (g) the international dimensions of some of Indias rivers; and (h) the emerging concerns about the impact of climate change on water and the need for appropriate responses at local, national, regional, and global levels. It is clear that the above considerations cast several

responsibilities on the Central government, apart from those of the State governments. Given these and other concerns, the need for an overarching national water law is self-evident. (2) Several States are enacting laws on water and related issues. These can be quite divergent in their perceptions of and approaches to water. Some divergences from State to State may be inevitable and acceptable, but extreme and fundamental divergences will create a very muddled situation. A broad national consensus on certain basics seems very desirable. (3) Different State governments tend to adopt different legal

positions on their rights over the waters of a river basin that straddles more than one State. Such legal divergences tend to render the resolution of interState river-water conflicts extremely difficult. A national statement of the general legal position and principles that should govern such cases seems desirable. (4) Water is one of the most basic requirements for life. If national laws are considered necessary on subjects such as the environment, forests, wildlife, biological diversity, etc., a national law on water is even more necessary. Water is as basic as (if not more basic than) those subjects.

(5) Finally, the idea of a national water law is not something unusual or unprecedented. Many countries in the world have national water laws or codes, and some of them (for instance, the South African National Water Act of 1998) are widely regarded as very enlightened. The considerations behind those national codes or laws are relevant to India as well, although the form of a water law for India will clearly have to be guided by the nature of the Indian Constitution and the specific needs and circumstances of this country. Let us now consider the term framework law. My purpose in adopting that term was precisely

to avoid the danger of centralisation. In introducing our sub-groups draft we stated clearly that the proposed national water law was not intended to change the Centre-State relations in any way; that what was proposed was not a Central water management law or a command-and-control law of the usual kind, but a framework law, i.e., an overarching statement of general principles providing a framework within which the Centre, the States and the local governance institutions will exercise their respective legislative and/or executive (or devolved) powers. However, the framework law was intended to be justiciable in the sense that the laws passed and

the executive actions taken by the Central and State governments and the devolved functions exercised by PRIs would have to conform to the general principles and priorities laid down in the framework law (on the basis of a national consensus), and that deviations can be challenged in a court of law. The point will become clearer if we think of the proposed national water framework law as something like the Directive Principles of State Policy, but different in the sense that it would be justiciable. If such a national law is considered desirable, there are ways in which Parliament can enact it. We need not go into those modalities here.

The reason for my mentioning our sub-groups draft law must now be clear. The purpose was not to advertise that draft or to appeal to the government to adopt it though we will of course be gratified if that happens but to draw attention to the difference in approach between the sub-group and the Ministry. Though both the subgroup and the Ministry want a national law on water, the purposes in view are different. What the sub-group wanted was to bring about a national consensus on certain general principles relating to water, whereas the prime concern of the Ministry was apparently to strengthen the hands of the Centre. That was presumably why it put aside our draft and set up a

Committee to prepare a new draft. A setback This also explains why the Centre was unable to persuade the State governments to accept the idea of a national water framework law. The manner in which the Centre put forward that idea at the Water Resource Ministers Conference and the NDC must have given indications of the underlying desire to strengthen the hands of the Centre. In fact, though the Ministry uses the term framework law, what it has in mind is not really a framework law but a conventional operational one. This must have set the alarm

bells ringing in the minds of the Chief Ministers. As a result, the very idea of a national water framework law has become suspect in their eyes. Even if the Alagh Committee comes up with a draft of a genuine framework law with no elements of centralisation, it will now be an uphill task to persuade the States to accept it. This is a setback to an important initiative. The purpose of this article is to commend for the governments consideration an approach that would rescue the idea of a national water framework law from total rejection by the States. Their fears of centralisation need to be dispelled in a convincing

manner, and what is put forward must be a real framework law . (Ramaswamy R. Iyer is a former Secretary, Water Resources, Government of India.)

The Union government should dispel the States fears of centralisation if it wants to rescue the idea from total rejection January 7, 2013 A new saviour arrives in Pakistan Flight Tickets 1+1 Free - Book a Flight with MakeMyTrip and Get the next Ticket Absolutely Free Makemytrip.com/Buy1Get1Free ANITA JOSHUA

OUT OF THE BLUE:Dr. Qadri has not stated his future course of action beyond creating a Tahrir Square-like situation. The December 2012 picture is of the leader at a public meeting in Lahore. PHOTO: AFP The winter fog across Pakistan has brought in its wake a parallel haze in the nations perennially stormy political firmament with the arrival of another self-professed saviour from Canada Tahir-ulQadri. Serenaded back into the country with an advertisement blitzkrieg that smacked of big bucks, Dr. Qadri sent Pakistans politics into a tailspin with a mammoth rally at Lahores Minare-Pakistan on December 23 where the political-has-been served an ultimatum that essentially said

reform or perish. And, gave the federal government all of three weeks to do his bidding or else reckon with a Long March of four million people onto Islamabads Constitution Avenue which would be turned into a Tahrir Square. Dr. Qadri is a Barelvi religious scholar who took dual nationality of Canada about a decade ago and went Westward to project the soft face of Islam after dabbling in Pakistani politics. His demands include sweeping reforms covering electoral and a caretaker government of squeaky clean technocrats and patriots in consultation with all stakeholders including the judiciary and the military. He also invoked Article 254 of the Constitution arguing

that this was a constitutional provision under which elections, due before mid-May, could be delayed. Several red flags popped up almost simultaneously even before Dr. Qadri wrapped up his Nizam Badlo (Change the system) rally where the slogan was Siyasat Nahin, Riyasat Bachao (Save the State, not politics). While the money spent on his rally and his waltzing in at this juncture in the last three months of the current dispensation had already got conspiracy theorists murmuring, mention of a government of technocrats, delaying elections and consulting the judiciary and military on the contours of the

caretaker government set alarm bells peeling of the omnipresent and all-powerful establishment developing its periodic itch to undermine the democratic project. Given Pakistans history, the apprehensions of mischief afoot were inevitable. The firstreforms-then-elections slogan sounded very similar to Zia ulHaqs Pehle ehtesaab, phir intikhab (First accountability, then elections) which allowed him to rule for the next decade. Memories of earlier attempts With parties like the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and the Pakistan Muslim League (Q)

two major constituents of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP)-led coalition extending support to Dr. Qadris caravan, the storm clouds were in particularly after the MQM decided to participate in the Long March. Adding fuel to fire, Dr. Qadri and the MQM urged the Army to facilitate the Long March by not taking orders from the government if its help was sought to stop the multitudes from entering Islamabad. Together, these statements brought back memories of earlier attempts to orchestrate a political alternative like the Pakistan National Alliance ahead of the 1977 elections to get rid of the PPP and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, and then again the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI) in 1990 to

keep his daughter Benazir Bhutto from coming to power. Pakistans history gives us reason to worry about the appearance of self-proclaimed saviours from out of the blue and the potential for them being stalking horses for the invisible forces, rued Farahnaz Ispahani, former spokesperson for President Asif Ali Zardari and a politician who was stripped of her membership of Parliament for being a dual national. We are working towards the completion of the democratically elected term that would be the first in Pakistans history. All challenges to democracy from outside Parliament reflect efforts by undemocratic forces to

reassert total power, she added, articulating a commonly held view. What has unsettled many is the timing. Why now, is a common refrain particularly since its most bitter critics had reconciled to the PPP-led government perpetually predicted to be on its last leg since the day it assumed office in 2008 seeing its full term through. After all, Pakistan is on the threshold of seeing its first democratic transition through an election under civilian rule in 65 years. Though Dr. Qadri insisted that he was not against democracy and all his demands were constitutional, even lawyers critical of the PPP

find fault with his interpretation of the Constitution. As for electoral reforms, this Parliament has expanded the Election Commission of Pakistan and the Chief Election Commissioner Fakhruddin G. Ebrahims name was suggested by the Opposition. Similarly, the 20th Amendment to the Constitution details the modalities for appointing the interim/caretaker government after the incumbent dispensation steps down and there is no provision whatsoever for consulting the military or the judiciary in this process. At the risk of being taunted as being a friendly opposition, the main Opposition party, the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz),

has time and again refused to play ball in destabilising the democratic process. Though it has been provoked into brinkmanship as in the Memogate case the PML(N) has evidently learnt its lesson well from the 1990s when the establishment used it to destabilise PPP-led governments and vice versa. On Imran Khan The Express Tribune, in an editorial, sought to explain the Qadri phenomenon thus: His appearance was too sudden to be explained as a natural reaction to disappointment in democracy or the performance of the current government. One popular theory is that the military, having first

given Imran Khan a nudge, has now shifted its allegiance to Qadri since it realizes that the *cricketerturned-politicians+ Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insafs electoral prospects have dimmed. That Dr. Qadri pulled a massive crowd at Lahore is no surprise since he presides over the Minhajul-Quran International (MQI) a non-political, nonsectarian, nongovernmental organisation with a huge network spread across Pakistan and 90 countries. He claims that the money for his rally also came from this international network and the MQI website is posting details of his campaign for changing the corrupt system of Pakistan.

Apart from feeding into the general disenchantment with the state of affairs in Pakistan poor governance and corruption included Dr. Qadri has not stated his future course of action beyond creating a Tahrir Squarelike situation. Asked how he proposed to contest elections as dual nationals are debarred from doing so, his reply has been that he would give up his Canadian nationality if he decides to contest. Neither has there been any visible indication of reviving his defunct political party, the Pakistani Awami Tehreek. For all the confusion Dr. Qadri has managed to create, there is a silver lining to the gathering storm clouds. Apart from the MQM

which has said it would continue to support the federal government practically every political party, big and small, has come out in favour of timely elections and batted for democracy. Even the media which has been critical of the government from day one and blames elected representatives for the downward slide is speaking up for democracy; reflecting its own stakes in the process as Pakistans political class closed ranks to weather the storm.

Tahir-ul-Qadris reappearance on the scene a few months elections are due has

sudden political before set off

concerns that he is a stalking horse for anti-democratic forces January 8, 2013 An overdraft for a special case Online Demat Account - Open a Demat, Savings & Trading All-in-1 Kotak Account. Sign Up Now www.KotakSecurities.com ERA SEZHIYAN How intervention by a Union Minister during the Emergency led a public sector bank to hand over Rs.10 lakh to Associated Journals with no questions asked Bending rules:It was at the behest of P.C. Sethi (centre), Home Minister in Indira Gandhis Cabinet, that T.R. Tuli, who was appointed as the head of Punjab

National Bank on the Prime Ministers suggestion, disbursed a large unsecured loan to the ailing media house. Photo: PIB The Congress party admitted recently that it had extended an interest-free loan to an ailing Associated Journals Limited (AJL). Without going into the furore that surrounded the whole affair, it will be interesting to recall the story of an overdraft that a public sector bank had extended to the same company more than 36 years ago, during the darkest part of the 1975-77 period of the Emergency a matter that later came under the adverse notice of the Shah Commission of Inquiry. In March 1976, P.C. Sethi, Minister in the Indira Gandhi government,

called T.R. Tuli, Chairman and Managing Director of Punjab National Bank (PNB), to his residence and asked him to help Associated Journals by advancing money to enable it to take delivery of imported machinery in Bombay. Colonel Bashir Hussain Zaidi, Chairman and Managing Director of AJL, met Tuli and sought an immediate advance that would be repaid from a term loan of Rs.15 lakh from the bank against a second mortgage of its Herald House on Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg in New Delhi. After a discussion with Tuli, AJL requested the Parliament Street branch of PNB for a temporary overdraft of Rs.10 lakh. Later, in his testimony

before the Shah Commission, Tuli was to admit that he had given his verbal approval to L.D. Adalkha, Manager of the Parliament Street branch. The Shah Commission (Chapter VII of Report 1) found that AJL did not have any account with PNB until the point it sought the overdraft. On March 20, AJL opened a current account in the bank and deposited Rs.1,70,000. PNB issued, on March 22, a cheque for Rs.10 lakh to enable AJL to take delivery of a consignment of machinery. The net overdraft amounted to Rs.8,30,000. There was some correspondence between the PNB branch and AJL to ensure that the overdraft be

secured. On April 21, 1976, AJL wrote to the bank saying it was not in a position to offer Herald House as security and that it was arranging to repay the overdraft amount shortly. When the Shah Commission took up this transaction as a special case in October 1977, the position was that AJL had repaid only Rs.20,000 towards interest. A sum of Rs.10 lakh was outstanding as principal and interest. During his testimony before the Commission in November 1977, Tuli was asked whether the loan was granted at his insistence by the Parliament Street branch and contrary to the banks normal loan granting practices.

He replied that there was a reason for doing so as the AJL was in urgent need of money and ultimately it was to get a term loan against mortgage of a building. Asked why he did not look at the balance sheet of AJL, as he was duty-bound to do, Tuli replied: That was my omission. Asked whether he acted thus because a Minister had advised him to do help the company, he replied: Yes, sir. That is a big consideration for me. He added: Naturally, when a Minister says, some consideration has got to be given and that is why the whole thing was expedited.

The Commission reminded Tuli of his written statement where he had stated that he had given verbal approval to the branch manager and that since National Herald, published by AJL, was connected with the Prime Minister, it must have weighed a little in his mind to deal with the case on a priority basis expeditiously. When Tuli was reminded that it was without security, he replied: Of course, it was without security. The Shah Commission concluded: There can be no doubt that the decision to allow a temporary overdraft in this case without security, albeit on the understanding which did not materialise that the security will

be provided soon thereafter, was solely that of Shri T.R.Tuli. The Commission said the following circumstances should have put Tuli on his guard. (i) AJL did not have an account with PNB till then, whereas it had accounts with Syndicate Bank, United Commercial Bank and Vijaya Bank. Tuli should have, either on his own or through his officers, made confidential enquiries with other banks to ascertain the companys creditworthiness. The fact that AJL had approached a bank with which it had no prior dealings, instead of one of its existing banks, was enough reason to suspect that

everything was not right with the proposal. (ii) The machinery in question had arrived in Bombay towards the end of October 1975 and demurrage was mounting at the rate of Rs.4,000 a day. It had added up to over Rs.6 lakh by the time PNB was approached. This should have caused concern to Tuli as the demurrage had added to the cost of the equipment. (iii) Tuli admitted he had not seen any evaluation report regarding AJL, or its balance sheet, or any statement of its assets and liabilities, before approving the proposal.

The Commission got a report of the Central Intelligence Section of Credit Administration of PNB. It stated that AJL had incurred losses of about Rs. 10 lakh a year in 1973-74 and 1974-75, and the accumulated losses were over Rs. 47 lakh. According to the report, not only were the reserves and surpluses wiped off, but the paidup capital to the extent of Rs.41 lakh stood eroded.The Commission concluded: In the present case, however, no precautions which would be normal in advancing money on a clean overdraft account were taken; but solely because of the intervention of Minister Shri P.C. Sethi, loan was advanced, disregarding the canons which would ordinarily govern the

advancing of such a loan. Further, Tuli has also misused his powers and abused his authority in so doing. There was another case examined by the Shah Commission that revealed that Tulis appointment as Chairman and Managing Director of PNB came about at the insistence of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. PMs recommendation Under the Rules of the Nationalised Banks (Management and Miscellaneous Provisions) Scheme, 1970, the head of a nationalised bank should be appointed by the Union government after consulting the

Reserve Bank of India. As the Chairman of PNB was to retire on July 31, 1975, the RBI recommended for that post O.P. Gupta, Deputy General Manager of PNB. This was approved by Finance Minister C. Subramaniam and Home Minister K. Brahmananda Reddy. When the papers were sent to the Prime Minister as the third member of the appointments committee, she mentioned that Tulis name should also be considered for the post. Tuli was then Chairman of New Bank of India, in the private sector. However, the recommendation of the Finance Minister was redrafted and Tuli became Chairman and Managing Director of PNB on August 1, 1975.

When the Shah Commission asked C. Subramaniam why O.P. Gupta was not appointed as recommended by the RBI, he said he had not known Tuli earlier, and that PNB was much bigger than New Bank of India. Asked whether the Prime Minister had suggested that Tuli be appointed, Subramaniam replied: Yes. This was why Tuli went against all canons of banking to help Associated Journals. It is not known how Punjab National Bank eventually dealt with the unsecured overdraft given to Associated Journals. (Era Sezhiyan is an eminent writer and a former parliamentarian. He

compiled and edited Shah Commission Report: Lost, and Regained .) January 8, 2013 Burying democracy in human waste Waste Incinerators - Prominent Manufacturer & Supplier. Deal in Waste Incrinerators. chintansales.com/Call@+9178780 17629 PRABHA SRIDEVAN

The Supreme Court had recently admonished a District Magistrate for filing a wrong affidavit stating that there was no manual scavenging in his district. Just a day earlier, Union Minister of Rural Development Jairam

Ramesh had publicly apologised for the continuance of the practice of manual scavenging. And I thought of a documentary on manual scavenging that has haunted me ever since I saw it. It is really what is described as an in your face documentary. A scene is of a small girl in a blue frock, and with liquid eyes what in Tamil we would call Neerottam . She answers the questions about her experience in school (what I give below is not a verbatim reproduction of the script, but an imperfect one). Did you like school? Yes. (A shy smile)

What happened? I stopped. Why? I used to sit in the front row. Then my classmates did not want me to sit next to them. So the teacher asked me to move to the last row. I went for some days. Then I stopped. This did not happen decades ago, but in this day and age. It must have been a government school. Where else will a poor Bhangis child go? Article 17 of the Constitution states: Untouchability is abolished. If a government schoolteacher can ask a child to go to the back row

because her classmates do not want any contact with her, when was it abolished? Let us all feel on our skin the sandpaper-rub of exclusion. We are not done with that little girl yet. The camera stays on her face, while she looks back at us. Slowly those deep eyes, which have known a pain that no eight-yearold should, well up with tears and she whispers: I wanted to become a nurse or a teacher. Fraternity, we promised ourselves; fraternity assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the nation. What does fraternity mean? Dr. Ambedkar

said, when the Constitution was in the making, that: Fraternity means a sense of common brotherhood of all Indians of Indians being one people. It is the principle which gives unity and solidarity to social life. It is a difficult thing to achieve. Castes are anti-national, in the first place, because, they bring about separation in social life. They are anti-national also because they generate jealousy and antipathy between caste and caste. But we must overcome all these difficulties if we wish to become a nation in reality. For fraternity can be a fact only when there is a nation. Without fraternity, equality and liberty will be no deeper than coats of paint. The truth must be told, we have not

overcome. Why else did the teacher ask that child to sit away from her classmates? How do we apologise to her for the insult to her dignity, the vandalism of her dreams, and the destruction of her desire? How do we make amends? Can we, in one lifetime, do it? This was a denial of fraternity, a violation of the basic principle of democracy. We, the units of humanity, are interconnected and respect for each other is a sine qua non of all human interactions. There can be no dilution or compromise on this. It is not dependent on who the one is or who the other. This interconnectedness is fraternity the spirit that assures and affirms human dignity. That is why it is

imperative that fraternity informs all State actions and all social transactions. The dynamics between equality and fraternity work like this: in the absence of substantive equality, there will always be groups whose dignity is not acknowledged resulting in a negation of fraternity. Of the five senses, touch is the least understood. But it is the only sense that establishes fraternity that also establishes kinship. A bridge is built when you touch another in kinship in a way that it is not when you look at, talk to or listen to the other. And a continent of persons within India has been denied that touch, that kinship. It is because we have not understood the principle of

fraternity, that there is no they and us, there is only us. 2010 deadline That young girl of the broken dreams was born to parents who are manual scavengers. This is a group to which the right to fraternity is consistently and brazenly denied, and the most marginalised of marginalised groups. It is acknowledged in public meetings that manual scavenging is a human rights issue and not about sanitation. We read in the newspapers that this practice would soon be banned and that we would become Nirmal Bharat. But it continues. Even if the winds of change are blowing, for the condemned ones even

yesterday is not soon enough, any of the yesterdays. There have been many deadlines for eradicating this practice, one such final deadline was March 31, 2010. Deadlines have come and gone. But manual scavengers continue their work, anaesthetising themselves with drinks and drugs from these assaults on their dignity. Their lives are a daily negation of the right to a life with dignity though they have court orders affirming that right. When a teacher asks a child like the one whom we met earlier what her father does for a living, what would she say? My father carries all your filth on his head? She probably remains silent. If she

speaks those words, her classmates would not see it just as another job. No, it is a job that has to be done by the other, so our houses within will remain clean, and the other after cleaning the house will go outside the margin and remain unclean. She would be asked to sit away from the rest. So, she is silent. What do you know? I once heard at the National Judicial Academy, an excruciatingly painful experience shared by Bezwada Wilson, who campaigns against manual scavenging. He had seen some persons who were manual scavengers, digging in a pile of excreta.

He asked, What are you doing? The pail has got buried in the filth; we are trying to retrieve it. So you will dig there with your hands? If we do not get it back, we cannot do our job tomorrow, and we will not get paid. What do you know? He said, I walked and walked for a long time out in the fields and I stood there and cried to the moon, I cried to the wind, I cried to the water, I cried and I asked why?

In his book The Strange Alchemy of Law and Life, Justice Albie Sachs of South Africa writes, There are some things human beings cannot do to other human beings. He said it in the context of torture; it is just the same in the context of this abomination. The Supreme Court in State of M.P. vs. Ram Krishna Balothia (1995 SCC (3) 221) rejected the attack on the provisions of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989, saying that a special legislation to check and deter crimes against them committed by non-Scheduled Castes and non-Scheduled Tribes is necessary, in view of the continued violation of their rights. S.3(1)(ii) of this Act says:

Whoever, not being a member of a Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe i. ......... ii. acts with intent to cause injury, insult or annoyance to any member of a Scheduled Caste, or a Scheduled Tribe by dumping excreta ... in his premises or neighbourhood, is punishable. But the work of manually lifting and the removal of human excreta is inextricably linked with caste and is another form of dumping. Mr. Wilson writes in his Foreword to Gita Ramaswamys book India Stinking (2005) that, (A)n estimated 13,00,000 people from

dalit communities continue to be employed as manual scavengers across the length and breadth of this country in private homes, in community dry latrines managed by the municipality, in the public sector such as railways and by the army. This is why the heart of a little girl who wanted to become a nurse was broken and she dropped out of school. There are some things one human being does not do to another human being. (Prabha Sridevan, a former Judge of the Madras High Court, is Chairperson, Intellectual Property Appellate Board.)

Every day that the practice of manual scavenging continues is another day that negates the right to a life of dignity for those still forced to engage in this demeaning work January 8, 2013 Learning to talk outside gunpoint 3rd gen. Business Laptop - 12x HDFC EMI. 2d Delivery. Core i5. 1 year Loss & Damage Replacement. syberplace.com/lenovo BOYD FULLER SHRIYA MOHAN

Capturing hostages is believed to be the only way for Naxalites to get the government to lend them their ears. So by agreeing to talk only when kidnapped, are we not

asking to be held at gunpoint? At left, Maoists during a training session in the Dantewada forest. (Right) Sukma Collector Alex Paul Menon, accompanied by an interlocutor, following his release by the Maoists in the forests of Chintalnar in Chhattisgarh, in May last year. photos: Akhilesh Kumar When Roger Fisher, negotiation guru and former director of the Harvard Negotiation Project, was once asked in an interview if he could really negotiate with a terrorist, he said, Id much rather listen to them than fight. A lot of times, theyve got legitimate grievances packaged as extreme political positions.

Near the end of 2012, the government made an important move towards negotiations with the Maoists, promising to put in place Crisis Management Groups (CMG), which are essentially teams to negotiate hostage situations in Left Wing Extremist (LWE) States. Clearly, the two high profile Maoist kidnaps of last year Collector Alex Paul Menon at Chhattisgarh and the Italian tourists at Orissa created much national distress. But as we embark on combating a new year of conflict, let us reflect for a bit. Capturing hostages is believed to be the only way for Maoists to get the government to lend them their ears. So by agreeing to talk

only when kidnapped, are we not asking to be held at gun point? Getting the parties to the table is not the main problem, however. Recall the Committee for Concerned Citizens (CCC) a group of former bureaucrats, journalists, intellectuals and fellow citizens who convened the 1994 Andhra peace talks. The CCC had earned enormous legitimacy as a result of the records of the victims of violence they built over the course of five years and their careful taking-to-task of both sides in an impartial manner. Where they failed, however, was in designing a realistic agenda and an effective process for parties that lacked the willingness and

capacity to promises.

implement

their

So how can the CMG be made to develop that capacity? First, the panel must be prepared for the two sets of issues that the Naxalites are known to raise. The first set of demands is limited in scope, relatively tangible, and easier to evaluate for instance, the release of imprisoned Maoists or the return of tribal land being occupied by non-tribals. Such demands present tangible and immediate choices to the government for which it can balance costs and benefits. However, the second set of demands involves the underlying needs and perceived injustices

that drive their movement. These are filled with historical baggage, larger in impact and potential cost and thus harder to weigh against the value of a particular life. To work through these requires formidable skill which the CMGs can develop in Naxalite and government negotiators. Homing in on underlying needs Such skills should be taught based on principled negotiation techniques, which start with a fundamental premise: never negotiate the demands, start with the needs and wants underlying them. This analysis is done through a carefully constructed process of sharing information and active listening that doesnt

come naturally parties.

to

conflicting

As the underlying needs are revealed, the parties learn to find creative solutions through an evaluated give-and-take based on needs, not demands. Furthermore, as the parties get close to an agreement, the process needs to anticipate potential challenges to its implementation in order to avoid the failed promises of the past. Being trained in communication and relationship-building techniques is essential for creating the necessary psychological safety at the table for frank and pathbreaking discussions, especially

given the harsh rhetoric in public spheres. Physical safety is the second factor. Naxalites have never been allowed to negotiate directly because of this dilemma. How to negotiate with a banned party without lifting the ban? Naxalite negotiator and trade union leader Dandapani Mohanty suggests that imprisoned Maoists be brought in under police custody to negotiate on behalf of the party rather than roping in members of civil society who are removed from the realities of the parties interests. Finally, the hostage negotiators can work with their counterparts to develop a set of procedures for how they define an agenda, carry

out negotiations, and ensure that agreements are implemented. The government negotiators can be continuously training their counterparts through the examples that they set and building faith on both sides. The Home Ministry recently declared that the year 2012 had seen the lowest number of incidents of violence involving Maoists under UPA rule, with the lowest amounting to 1,365 recorded incidents. The government has repeatedly refused to talk to the Maoists until the violence stops. And now that violence is at bay it is propagated as a counterinsurgency success that overrides any need for talks! If talks have to

happen, it is not possible with the well-meaning but fragmented mediation efforts of B.D. Sharma, Swami Agnivesh or Professor Haragopal. The year 2013 calls for another CCC, this time with nationwide ambit, to demand talks that deal with more than just the release of hostages. Captures unplanned Do you know that all *episodes of capturing+ hostages are unplanned? The Italian tourists and the Collector just happened to be there when the Maoists were looking for a hostage to communicate their demands to the government, smiles Mohanty. The setting up of CMGs is a big step forward. The question

is whether they will pave the way, creating platforms to address the root causes of the movement or only produce themselves at gunpoint. (Prof. Boyd Fuller teaches Negotiation at The Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. Shriya Mohan is an independent journalist.)

In order to be effective, mechanisms for talks with Maoists must aim to address much more than the release of hostages January 9, 2013 In Myanmars transition, shades of Indonesia

Choose Gmail - Free Email by Google Switch to Gmail, Sign up now! google.com BALADAS GHOSHAL

In step:The militaries of both nations are inheritors of the legacies of Japanese occupation, are obsessed with law, order, discipline, unity and think themselves key to their countrys survival. Photo: AP How does one get a sense of the political developments or the road-map that the regime in Myanmar has laid out for the future? Is there a model that gives us a key to an understanding of the pathology of the regime in

Myanmar? Historical parallels can sometimes be misleading, but the Burmese experience parallels that of Indonesia in a number of respects. The militaries of both nations are inheritors of the legacies of Japanese occupation, are obsessed with law, order, discipline, unity and territorial integrity; gave high premium to intelligence agencies in maintaining regime survival; debilitated their civil societies; acquired stakes in the countrys economy, and legitimised the political role of the armed forces through constitutional provisions. Both are multiethnic states are haunted by the twin spectres of racial tension and a separatist periphery. And, both have inflated

views of their importance to national survival. As in Indonesia, nationalism flowered in Burma during World War II and Burmas postindependence leadership had been closely associated with the anti-colonial Burma Independence Army (BIA) recruited and trained by the Japanese. Unity in diversity was a vision Indonesia and Burma shared in the immediate aftermath of colonial rule, when both Sukarno and Aung San, young and charismatic political leaders, sought to bring heterogeneous peoples under a banner of national unity. The Indonesian armed forces, created in 1945 to support the revolutionary struggle, were

recruited largely from the military force, Pembela Tanah Air (Defenders of the Fatherland, PETA), recruited from amongst nationalist elements by the Japanese in 1943, the military played a major role in the revolutionary war; it also inherited a distrust of civilian politicians. In both Burma and Indonesia, the military had played a prominent part in the achievement of independence. In both countries, having intervened decisively, the military consolidated its position by expanding into civilian administration and business and by establishing a militarydominated political party. As in Indonesia, the Burmese army was initially composed of diverse

elements. During the British colonial period the Burmese army was recruited predominantly from among the ethnic minorities, especially the Karen. During World War II, when Burmese nationalists joined the Japanese-trained BIA and initially fought alongside the Japanese, many of the ethnic minorities fought with the Allies. With the outbreak of communal violence between Burmans and Karens, the Karen head of the army was removed; Ne Win was given command, and the multiethnic composition of the army gave way to Burman domination. Indeed the suppression of ethnic minority revolts became the armys principal task.

Similarly in Indonesia, as the country was divided along ethnic lines and rocked by civil war in the 1950s, the armed forces were dominated by the majority Javanese. Under somewhat different circumstances, but with common elements of ethnic fragmentation and class division, Burma also went through a period of considerable turbulence following independence in 1948 and in 1958 Prime Minister Nu stepped down, inviting the armed forces to set up a caretaker government. Elections were held again in 1960 but the political party which the military supported was defeated and two years later a military coup brought an end to parliamentary

democracy and reinstated army commander General Ne Win as head of government. Indonesia also experienced a period of parliamentary democracy, followed by Sukarnos guided democracy and eventually a military-supported regime of General Suharto. Dual function In the 1950s, Indonesian army chief-of-staff, Colonel Nasution had put forward the idea of a Middle Way for the armed forces, which combined their conventional role in the defence of the country with participation in government. After the overthrow of Sukarno this idea was formally embodied in the

principle of dwifungsi (dual function); in the New Order regime of President Suharto, ABRI (Indonesian Armed forces) was formally represented at all levels of government. If the Golkar party was the civilian face of military rule in Suharto's Indonesia, in Burma it was the Union Solidarity and Development Association set up by the military in 1993, later transformed into Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) when it contested the election in 2010. In 2008 Myanmars benighted people were forced to endorse a dual function constitution in a referendum, giving legitimacy to the soldiers heft in parliament and government.

But there are differences too. Unlike in Indonesia where the military got involved in businesses as they consolidated their political control in course of time, in Burma the take-over was simultaneous. Almost all private property was confiscated and handed over to a number of military-run state corporations. The old mercantile elite, which to a large extent were of ethnic Indian and Chinese origin, left the country, and so did many of Burmas intellectuals. Prior to the 1962 coup, Burma had had one of the highest living standards in Southeast Asia, and a fairly well-educated population. But thereafter, the military became the only elite with very little formal education.

Another important difference between the Burmese military and the militaries of Indonesia is that whereas the latter wanted to integrate their countrys economy with the outside world and took the help of technocrats and the international economic institution to do this, the former was deeply suspicious of the outside world and, therefore, isolated itself. Indonesias newspapers had more room than the Burmese press. Despite these minor differences, the pathology, the ideological outlook and the experiences of the two countries are so similar that Myanmar is likely to follow the same trajectory in its movement towards democracy

a guided political system with a certain role for the armed forces till the economy grows to accommodate both the security and economic interests of the armed forces through an expanded defence budget, and creates a middle class demanding greater transparency and accountability from the government. (Baladas Ghoshal is a Distinguished Fellow, Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, and Professor and Chair, Southeast Asian Studies, JNU.)

The two countries have evolved in strikingly similar ways January 9, 2013

A woman-shaped gap in the Indian workforce Luxury Apartments, Kochi - Near Seaport-Airport Road & Lulu Mall! Starts From 17.5 Lac. Enquire www.NestInfratech.com JAYAN JOSE THOMAS

Missing women:A staggeringly large number of women, forced to attend to domestic duties, find themselves marginalised in the Indian economy. Photos: Arunangsu Roy Chowdhury & Akhilesh Kumar Women in India face enormous challenges for their participation in the economy in a way that mirrors the many injustices they

suffer in the society at large. The labour participation rate of women that is, the number of women in the labour force as a proportion of the total female population provides an indicator of some of these challenges. In 2008, the labour participation rate in India was only 33 per cent for females as compared to 81 per cent for males. By way of comparison, it was 68 per cent. Among Indian States, the female labour participation rate is one of the lowest in Delhi, a region also known for its harsh treatment of women. The labour force includes not only the employed but also unemployed persons who are

actively seeking jobs. In India, substantial numbers of women who are not counted in the labour force are, as described in the official statistics, attending to domestic duties in their own households. National Sample Survey reports tell us that, in 2009-10, out of every 1,000 females (all ages) in Indias rural areas, 347 were attending to domestic duties. In the case of urban females, this number was even bigger: 465 per 1000. Compare this to the number of rural and urban men who were attending to domestic duties: only 5 per 1,000 and 4 per 1,000 respectively. Why is Indias female labour participation rate so low? Part of

the answer lies in the methods employed to measure womens work. A womans work in her own household is not counted as an economic activity, and does not get reported in the national income statistics. This is unlike the case of services by a paid domestic help, which is considered an economic activity and is counted in the national income. As is well known, womens domestic duties include childbirth, caring for the young and old, cooking, and a range of other activities that are crucial for the upkeep of the family. However, society undervalues these immense contributions

made by women. And, to some extent, official statistics reproduces the prejudices in the society. In rural areas, women periodically enter and exit from agricultural work. Quite often, womens participation in agricultural activities as self-employed workers is to supplement the falling incomes of their families during times of agrarian distress. This is what seemed to have happened in India between 19992000 and 2004-05. During this five-year period, the growth of agricultural incomes in the country was stagnant, yet the number of self-employed female workers engaged in agriculture and related activities increased by

17 million, possibly indicating distress employment. On the other hand, between 2004-05 and 2009-10, the number of self-employed female workers engaged in agriculture and related activities decreased by 19 million in India. This decline in employment could be attributed to a modest revival in the growth of agricultural incomes and to the positive impact on rural employment and wages created by the MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act). Thus, it appears that in India, during the 2000s, female employment in agriculture was not driven by any real

opportunities for income generation, but was part of a lastditch effort to escape impoverishment. Urban, Educated Women In India, social factors play a significant role in reducing womens labour participation. Husbands and in-laws often discourage women from working, while, in many parts of the country, restrictions are imposed even on their movements outside the household. In this context, it is notable that labour participation is particularly low in India among urban, educated women the section of the female society that is, in fact,

less likely to be constrained by social factors. In 2009-10, the proportion of those attending to domestic duties (and therefore out of the labour force) was 57 per cent among urban females with graduate degrees or higher, compared to just 31 per cent among rural females with primary or middle school education. What are the reasons for such a massive withdrawal of educated women from the work force? Lower wages than men could be one reason. But then female-male wage disparities exist in Japan and South Korea as well, but female labour participation has been high in these countries.

It appears that the factor that pushes female labour participation in India to particularly low depths is the sheer absence of suitable employment opportunities. The slow generation of employment is, in turn, linked to a specific feature of Indias economic transition. This is the relatively small contribution made by the manufacturing sector to Indias GDP (gross domestic product) and employment. Within Indian manufacturing, womens employment is increasingly in the low-paid, vulnerable sectors. Between 19992000 and 2004-05, women accounted for 3.7 million of the 9.7 million new manufacturing

jobs created in the country. A large proportion of these women were employed in the exportoriented sectors such as garmentmaking. However, by 2009-10, Indias manufacturing sector was suffering from a variety of problems, including power shortage and a slowdown in export demand from western countries. Between 2004-05 and 2009-10, 3.7 million manufacturing jobs were lost in the country, and more than 80 per cent of those who lost their jobs were women. During the post-1990 years, the major source of employment for women has been in the services

sector, mainly in low-paid services such as domestic help. At the same time, females accounted for only a small share of the relatively high quality jobs generated in India in recent years: for instance, only 20 per cent of the new jobs created in financing, real estate and business services during the 2000s, and 10 per cent of the new jobs generated in computer and related activities during the second half of the 2000s. Amartya Sen has written about the missing women in India, highlighting the low female-male ratio in the countrys population. Sen argues that this issue points to the severe disadvantages faced by the female child in India. The issue of the missing women in

Indias population has a parallel in the problem relating to the missing women in Indias workforce. That is, the staggering numbers of women who have withdrawn from the labour force and attend to domestic duties. In 2009-10, the total number of women attending to domestic duties in India was 216 million, which was larger than the entire population of Brazil. Of these, women with graduate degrees or higher numbered 12.7 million, which was more than twice the population of Singapore. Clearly, the large-scale withdrawal of women from the labour force involves enormous wastage of talent and causes a huge opportunity cost to the nation.

Creating more jobs and ensuring better working conditions for women will encourage greater female participation in the economy. As more women join the workforce, the voices against gender-based inequalities will grow louder. Equally importantly, there will also be more hands and brains to take the Indian economy forward. (Jayan Jose Thomas teaches Economics at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi.)

A mix of social constraints and dearth of employment

opportunities has kept women out of the labour market, leading to a huge opportunity cost to the nation January 9, 2013 Leadership that suffers a legitimacy deficit Flight Tickets 1+1 Free - Book a Flight with MakeMyTrip and Get the next Ticket Absolutely Free Makemytrip.com/Buy1Get1Free VINOD BHANU

Of the people, by the people, for the people, embodies the spirit of democracy and the need for elected leaders who are accountable to voters for the decisions they take. In India, as the largest democracy in the

world, its ironic that the Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh (Dr. Singh is a Member of the Rajya Sabha), and three Chief Ministers are unelected leaders from the second chambers. This represents both a threat to democracy and calls into question the legitimacy of their position. Only six States have the bicameral legislatures: Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Jammu & Kashmir. Among these States, three Chief Ministers (CMs), Akhilesh Yadav (U.P.), Nitish Kumar (Bihar) and Prithviraj Chavan (Maharashtra), are from their second chamber (Legislative Councils). The other three CMs, where the second chambers exist, are from the

Legislative Assemblies and directly elected by the people. The second chamber in all these States is known for its almost redundant status and abject performance. It has never been able to capture the attention of the public as an indispensable body or establish itself as a house of elders with social and political wisdom. However, interestingly, all the Members of Legislative Council (MLCs) enjoy almost the same privileges, perks, pensions and facilities as the Members of Legislative Assembly (MLAs). Constitutionally inferior One wonders why, except in the case of Prithviraj Chavan, the two

popular CMs, Akhilesh Yadav and Nitish Kumar, preferred to have the membership in the Legislative Council. Throughout his political career, Nitish Kumar, a follower of the great socialist leader Jayaprakash Narayan, contested the Assembly and the Lok Sabha (Lower House) elections. However, to the paradox of Nitishs identity in politics, he chose to be a member of the legislative council during his current chief ministership for two tenures, highlighting a lack of democratic sensibility. In March 2012, the U.P. Assembly elections illustrated the rise of Akhilesh Yadav as a popular leader. The story of Yadav, though groomed into politics through a

dynasty politics, personifies the rise of virtually all young leaders in recent Indian political history; he has unmistakably become a young political leader worth watching. However, this populist leader avoided facing a direct election to the Assembly which would have given him democratic credibility. The question is why do young leaders have such a noncommittal attitude towards democracy, and its institutions and practices? The pertinent question that arises is why a chief minister or prime minister cannot be from the second chamber. The answer is that it involves less democracy: the democratic deficit between the people and their

representatives is too vast with serious issues of accountability. And it undermines the democratic integrity of the political apparatus. Moreover, the position of the second chambers in the States is constitutionally inferior unlike the second chamber of Parliament in some respects. In Tamil Nadu, A.P. There are high political disagreements about the establishment or abolition or reestablishment of the legislative councils in the States. In Tamil Nadu, the former CM, M. Karunanidhi wanted to revive the Legislative Council in the State, abolished in 1986 by the then CM,

M.G. Ramachandran of the AIADMK government. But all his attempts, in 1989, 1996 and 2010 failed. The current CM, Jayalalithaa, has taken a vehement stand against its revival. In Andhra Pradesh, the Legislative Council was restored in 2007 by the Congress government. In 1985, the council was abolished by the then CM, N.T. Rama Rao of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), who found the council redundant and caused a massive drain to the State exchequer. The TDP has opposed the re-establishment of the Council and categorically stated that it would abolish it again if it returns to power. Two more States, Punjab and Assam, have also asked for establishing

the legislative council, and the request is pending before Parliament for its approval. For and against In the Constituent Assembly, there was a large body of opinion against a second chamber in the federal parliament and the provinces. Although the general consensus was in favour of a single House in the States, the Constitution-makers had to make a compromise in favour of the provision for a second chamber in the States. Jayaprakash Narayan was against second chambers, pointing out Prof. Laskis opinion that no safeguard necessary to the units of a federation requires the protective armor of a second

chamber. The system of indirect election is pernicious, and no second chamber has so far satisfactorily discharged the function of revising chamber. In contrast to the above view, N. Gopalaswami Ayyangar argued, though less assertively, that the need for second chamber has been felt practically all over the world wherever there are federations of any importance, yet he did not attempt to justify the existence of the second chamber on any of the commonly accepted federal grounds such as giving equal representation to the federal states. It is also important to note that the amendment to the Representation of the People Act,

1951 which deleted the requirement of being domicile in the State concerned for getting elected to the Council of States is clearly violating the principles of federalism. Ambedkar was not supportive of the whole concept of bicameralism, but he opined that this could be a trial or experiment in the States. With the support of prominent members in the Constituent Assembly, Ambedkar made amendments that drastically curtailed the powers of the second chamber in the States. In the U.K. In the United Kingdom, since 1722, most prime ministers had

been members of the House of Commons. Since 1902, all prime ministers have been from the Commons except once in 1963. That year, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, who was Lord by hereditary peerage, became the Prime Minister. Soon after becoming Prime Minister, he renounced his Lordship, successfully stood in a by-election and became a member of the House of Commons. Furthermore, most senior members of the U.K. government are members of the Commons, though there are rare exceptions. The House of Lords, which is a live paradox of British democracy, has been heavily in the news of last year. In the Queens Speech 2012,

the current coalition government in the U.K. has pledged to reform the House of Lords. The proposed reforms included a fundamental change to the composition of the House of Lords with most members, approximately 80 per cent of them, being elected instead of nominated. Moreover, the size or the number of Lords would be significantly cut down from about 830 to 450 (the House of Lords is the largest second chamber in the world). This would have been a historically revolutionary change. However, sensing the possible rebellion of Conservative MPs, Prime Minister David Cameron renegaded on his earlier position and withdrew his support. On August 6, 2012, and with no realistic chance of the

reforms getting through the House of Commons, the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, announced the decision to drop the House of Lords Reform legislation for the time being. While announcing it he said: I support an elected House of Lords because I believe that those who make the laws of the land should be elected by those who have to obey the laws of the land. That is democracy and it is what people rightly expect from their politics in the 21st Century. Further, he added: An unelected House of Lords flies in the face of democratic principles and public opinion, and it makes a mockery of our claim to be the mother of all democracies.

From a vantage point of democracy, both Nitish Kumar and Akhilesh Yadav conspicuously failed to bring democratic legitimacy to their position, as they are not directly elected by the people. Dr. Singhs case is the nearest analogy, lacking a chance for a democratic recourse. (Vinod Bhanu is Executive Director, Centre for Legislative Research and Advocacy, New Delhi. The views expressed are personal.)

When even popular netas like Akhilesh Yadav and Nitish Kumar

choose to legislators,

remain

unelected

they undermine the democratic integrity of the political system January 10, 2013 Cash transfers can help make India less unequal, but are not a magic bullet Pension Plans - Invest 50,000 only& Get 63 Lacs Compare All Plans with SBI Life SBIPension.Policybazaar.com SANDEEP JOSHI

A tribal woman in Rayagada, Odisha waits to receive coupons

to purchase subsidised rice from a fair price shop. PHOTO: AP Amartya Sen PHOTO: M. VEDHAN The Union Government has launched the Direct Benefits Transfer (DBT) programme to give benefits like scholarships, pensions, NREGA wages, etc. directly to the bank or post office accounts of beneficiaries. There are also talks of direct transfer of subsidies for food, fertilizer and kerosene at a later stage. Will the scheme work? Cash transfer can be a good way of helping the poor in many circumstances. Indeed, many schemes that are not directly cash transfer schemes also work mainly

through cash transfer, such as the National Rural Employment Guarantee programme, which certainly has helped the poor through creating jobs and generating cash income for a great many poor people in rural India. Cash is easy to handle and can be, in many cases, easily monitored. It cannot be sensible to be generically against cash transfer schemes, in a country with a lot of poverty and a commitment to use public money to make the very poor a bit less poor. However, the Direct Benefits Transfer (DBT) programme is a particular scheme of cash transfer, and we have to ask what it may be displacing and whether the losers will not be plunged into more

poverty. It is not the modality of cash transfer that is the only issue, but also how much, and for whom, and also, instead of what. If, for example, it is instead of subsidised food, we have to make sure that the people who depend on cheaper food will have enough cash to buy the unsubsidised food. There is also another issue that of the distributional effects of different kinds of benefits within the family. There is a good deal of empirical evidence to suggest that direct access to food tends to favour children rather than only the adults, and also girls rather than only the boys, working against biased social priorities, common in the subcontinent, favouring adults over children,

and boys over girls, which is a long-standing problem in Indian society. If the cash transfer is not additional to food subsidies, and is given instead of food subsidies, it would be important to make sure that the money given would be used for nutritional purposes and, equally importantly, that it would be divided within the family in a way that addresses the manifest problems of undernourishment and deprivation of young girls. Further, even if it is made sure that cash transfers will work in a way that meets these difficulties, there may still be a serious problem of transition, especially if there is a time lag in opening an account in a bank, or in a post

office, to receive the cash transferred. If, meanwhile, the subsidised food disappears, the poor who fail to open an account adequately fast, for one reason or another, will lose doubly through not having the cash yet, and through the fact that others will have the cash to buy food which would keep the food prices high. The transition problem need not be impossible to handle, but attention will have to be paid to that, bearing in mind that many of the poorer Indians lead a life of hand-to-mouth existence, and any delay in the period of transition may plunge some people into extreme hardship. All this is in addition to the long-run problems of the modality of cash transfer, including distributional issues, as

well as the adequacy of the amounts of cash transferred. Cash transfer can be a very useful system to supplement other ways of making India a less unequal society, but it is not a magic bullet, and its pros and cons have to be assessed and scrutinised with an open mind. The Governments decision to allow FDI in multi-brand retail is being hotly debated in the country. While the Congress favours it saying it would give a much-needed boost to the economy and help farmers, the BJP and its allies are against it saying it would badly hurt small retailers and farmers. What precautions does the government

need to take while allowing FDI in multi-brand retail? The first thing to note is that FDI is neither an evil in itself nor a boon in every form. The case for it depends on its actual impact, and that in turn will depend on the choice of field, the amount of money that might come this way, and how it would influence the priorities of economic policies in India. It is not a question of having some abstract principle of no FDI nor one of any FDI of any kind, anywhere, irrespective of the impact of any particular FDI on the lives of the people involved. So the issue absolutely is not one of having a generic attitude of being against FDI or being in favour of FDI. It is not like

favouring motherhood or opposing Satanism. I can see many areas in which FDI has done good work and can do more and other areas in which its effect may be far from beneficial. As far as multi-brand retail is concerned, it is a difficult field, and it is a pity that the broader issue of the attitude to FDI has taken the particular form of asking whether one is in favour of, or against, Walmart and other large foreign retail firms becoming a dominant part of the Indian retail distribution. This change would certainly help marketing many types of products and would tend to be favoured by, I would expect, farmers and others seeking a large retail outlet. On the other hand, it

is very likely that many smaller outlets, like local grocer shops will be hit adversely by the large competition from organised and sometimes predatory retail giants. When there are both arguments that are pro and some that are con about a particular policy change, a good policymaker has to take into account both kinds of effects and evaluate whether the overall impact benefits or harms the Indian people. That is not an easy issue to resolve, but of course all planning and all policymaking involve such evaluation. I dont have a strong view in favour of some fixed conclusion on this particular subject, but I do have a firm

conviction that the subject demands public reasoning and critical scrutiny. The issue cannot be resolved by taking a generally pro or anti attitude about FDI in general. A really serious scrutiny is needed rather than just saying I am in favour of FDI in retail distribution or I am against it. Recent months have seen widespread anti-corruption demonstrations. How should corruption be tackled? It is wonderful that people are taking the issue of corruption seriously. That is a very positive achievement. The fact that people have been coming out in the streets protesting and recognising

this to be a problem is very important because along with that can come a better understanding of how bad things are in India, and out of that can come the search for a better identification of how corruption can be stopped or checked. Corruption need not be an inescapable part of Indian life, and we should not accept it on some fatalistic ground that this is the way things are in our country. If you have to give money in order to get something to which you are really entitled, then that certainly calls for protest and exposure of the crooks, not for any kind of quiet acceptance. However, street protest is one thing, and street justice is quite another. The punitive system has

to work through our judicial system. There couldnt be someone who is above the law, above the courts someone whom even the Indian Supreme Court cannot touch. It is a question of how the anticorruption measures can be integrated into the democratic legal structure of India. The remedy of corruption must involve, first, making the institutions and decisional practices such that they do not encourage or tolerate corruption. There is also a need for making the practical morality of day-to-day work more responsive to the ethical demands of social living there is no reason why corruption should

generate less stigma and less public shame in India than in other countries where such behaviour is far less common. Informational availability is very important to fight corruption, and there is much greater opportunity to make use of Indian democratic means, including the Right to Information to bring about the kind of change that would be effective (rather than only satisfy the desire to punish the guilty). There is a very strong case for paying much more attention to the possibilities of institutional change and also to steps towards attitudinal reorientation. We need more than just a system of punishment. [email protected]

We should not accept corruption on some fatalistic ground that this is the way things are in our country. January 10, 2013 A sop that does not help Keystone Energy Tools Manufactures Drill Pipe Elevators Same Day Quotes, Expedited Shipping www.Keystoneenergytools.com SUDHA MAHALINGAM

With the Aadhaar-based direct cash transfer scheme facing so many glitches in implementation, any hopes that the countrys energy sector can soon dismount

the subsidy tiger it has been riding so dangerously have receded into the background. Had the Aadhaar scheme worked satisfactorily, the next logical step would have been to extend it to leaky petroleum subsidies in order to limit them only to those who need and deserve to be subsidised. Lifeline energy Like all subsidies, petroleum subsidies too began with good intentions but soon spun out of control. In 2002, when the government dismantled the costplus administered pricing mechanism in the petroleum sector and linked petroleum product prices to import parity, it chose to subsidise through the

budget, two products kerosene and LPG. The rationale was that these constituted lifeline energy which had to be supplied to all households irrespective of their ability to pay for it. So far so good. But then, the oil marketing companies, at the behest of the government, failed to make the crucial distinction between those households that could pay the economic cost of cooking fuels and those that couldnt. The subsidy was extended to every domestic LPG connection. Kerosene subsidy was extended to every ration card holder whether BPL or not. In an unforeseen development, deregulation of petroleum

product prices in India coincided with a steady and steep increase in the global price of crude, which accounts for almost 90 per cent of product cost. From around $23.65 for a barrel of Indian basket crude in March 2002, prices went up to more than $115 in 2012. Consequently, product prices had to be revised frequently to keep up with rising crude prices. However, both LPG and kerosene were insulated from such price increases to a very large extent. That encouraged rapid increases in LPG penetration to households as well as subsidised kerosene allocations through ration cards. Apart from spiralling budgetary subsidies, this has resulted in perverse outcomes not envisaged

when these subsidies were first introduced. While LPG penetration on the records of oil marketing companies soared, all one has to do is to just ask around to find out how many domestic maids, helpers, cleaners, drivers and a host of other blue-collar workers who live in our cities and towns have access to LPG connections. Most of them dont, basically because they cannot produce an identity proof or give residence proof without which their neighbourhood gas agency would not even countenance their application. Many are itinerant workers and even those that are not rarely have a lease document for their rented homes. So, they

end up procuring 5 kilo empty cylinders from the market which they fill illegally (and dangerously) every few days from their friendly gas shop in the same neighbourhood. And they pay at least five times the price of a subsidised LPG cylinder. Not only does this class, which most needs the subsidised cooking fuel, not get it, worse, those who dont need the subsidy basically, the middle class often have more than a single LPG connection. Some of the supplies accessed by the illegal neighbourhood gas shop may come from these middle class households with more than one connection, who are often culpable by default.

Diversion of cooking gas Most households can get by with a single LPG cylinder a month and they do not draw their second subsidised entitlement of LPG, enabling the gas agency to divert it to whomsoever it chooses, for a premium. More often than not, it is supplied to commercial eateries and, at times, even established hotels which are supposed to get the bigger 19 kg cylinder at commercial prices. Enterprising private car-owners illegally convert their car engines to run on subsidised LPG meant for cooking. The oil marketing companies came up with Auto LPG cylinders to be sold at commercial rates, but it has been a cat and mouse game

between the OMCs and the flourishing illegal LPG market. The ensuing rents have created a chain of beneficiaries all of whom have a stake in keeping LPG prices subsidised. They constitute a valuable vote-bank. Only now oil marketing companies are waking up to the bane of multiple LPG connections in urban households which they are trying to weed out. The attempts to limit the number of subsidised LPG cylinders have witnessed some policy flip-flops. Yet another perverse outcome of LPG subsidisation is the crowding out of piped gas in cities. While LPG is subsidised, piped gas is not. Even though currently piped gas is

cheaper than even subsidised LPG, shrewd consumers foresee a steep increase in piped cooking gas prices, especially after the collapse of domestic gas production from KG basin. CNG prices in Delhi have more than doubled in the last three years. Eventually, piped gas prices will also go up as more and more city gas companies are sourcing LNG (liquefied natural gas) from international markets. Shrewd households used to subsidised cooking fuels are actually refusing piped gas connections. Yet piped gas is a far superior option compared to LPG. It is uninterrupted, cannot be diverted to other consumers and is safer than LPG in cylinders. Many a city gas distribution company has complained about

lackadaisical response to their efforts to expand pipeline connections. Kerosene subsidy has also produced equally perverse outcomes. Unsurprisingly, ration outlets report full drawal of subsidised kerosene quota. But only a part of it reaches the intended beneficiaries. At Rs. 27 a litre, the price differential between subsidised kerosene and diesel is indeed very significant, pushing the former into diesel tanks of cars, lorries and trucks. Kerosene mixed with diesel defies easy detection. It is estimated that half of all subsidised kerosene goes to adulterate diesel in cars and trucks, reducing their efficiency. Unlike LPG diversion

which takes place at the level of the dealers and gas agencies, kerosene diversion is controlled by mafia-like operations often with local political patronage. Corruption at all levels has ensured that chemical markers that would distinguish subsidised kerosene from the rest used in other industries get neutralised within a few weeks of their introduction. The most egregious perverse outcome of the governments misguided subsidy regime, however, pertains to diesel which is not even a cooking fuel. Even though diesel prices were linked to import parity prices from 2002 onwards, they were not revised in tandem with global crude prices

except in the initial two years, thanks to the invisible hand of government restraining the oil marketing companies. Diesel is used in irrigation pumpsets used by agriculture and in public transportation, especially trucks and the railways. Frequent elections to State Assemblies, even by-polls, can make the government jittery about raising diesel prices, as a result of which the gap between domestic market price of diesel and its import parity price begins to widen, giving rise to an implicit subsidy borne primarily by the oil marketing companies. Diesel cars

Cashing in on this unexpected windfall, car manufacturers have been flooding the Indian market with diesel-fuelled cars. Initially these addressed the urban taxicab segments but, gradually, even luxury brands have come up with diesel-fuelled models to entice the fuel-price sensitive consumers. In fact, one study found that 40 per cent of the diesel used in the country is by diesel cars. Cheap diesel, primarily meant for freight, has also led to indiscriminate increase in truck-borne traffic as opposed to rail-borne freight, a more economical way to transport goods. Indian highways are perpetually clogged with truck traffic, endangering the environment as well as human lives, not to speak of the quantum

jumps in diesel consumption in recent years. In fact, 60 per cent of the diesel consumed in the country is accounted for by the transportation sector. The share of diesel in the petroleum fuel basket rose to 43.7 per cent in FY 2011, up from 35.19 in FY 2002. Diesel car output growth has outpaced growth of petrol-driven private cars so much so that the diesel automobile lobby is threatening to become a forceful voice in ensuring that diesel remains a subsidised fuel. That apart, the automobile manufacturers skim a substantial chunk of the subsidy by pricing diesel cars considerably higher than their petrol counterparts. The vehicle owner pays an upfront

premium which unduly enriches the automobile manufacturer, a very perverse outcome indeed. If the government is serious about fuel subsidies reaching only the intended beneficiaries, it must act fast to curb these unintended and perverse outcomes. (The writer is an independent energy analyst and a former petroleum regulator).

Subsidies on cooking gas, kerosene and diesel have resulted in perverse outcomes not envisaged when they were introduced January 10, 2013 He gave us back our dignity

Horoscope for all 2013 - Claim your Free Reading from this accurate & talented Astrologer now AboutAstro.com/horoscope PREMA NANDAKUMAR

SOURCE OF INSPIRATION:Swami Vivekananda faced innumerable difficulties and disappointments in moves towards womens empowerment and caste equality, but he won in the end. Does one write deliberately as a woman or man when taking up pen and paper? I do not know. But right now, I am writing as an Indian woman. The Indian woman who has held up the torch of cultured living for millennia

through self-sacrifice, incredible feats of physical and mental endurance and abiding compassion. I know that the pen is a sacred object; if used unthinkingly as Sanjay Srivastava has done ( The Hindu , Op-Ed, Taking the aggression out of masculinity, January 3, 2013), it might do more harm than good to the position of women in India. Two portraits have been constant companions in my longish life as a housewife and writer. They have both infused in me the needed strength to face life despite scores of disappointments, frustrations and tragedies. One is the figure of Bharat Mata, rider on the lion, as though telling me: are you a weakling? You are as strong as this

land, endowed with hurrying streams and gleaming orchards. Never give up! I learnt the connection between nature and the Indian woman when I read Sita say in Kavisamrat Viswanatha Satyanarayanas Sri Ramayana Kalpavrikshamu that she has no fear of rivers and forests. Is she not the child of Mother Earth? The other portrait has been that of Swami Vivekananda, with the caption: Strength is life: weakness is death. It is a message for men and women of India. Yes, indeed it was Swami Vivekananda who gave us back our dignity as women, our education, our strength of purpose and reminded us again that no woman is a zero. Inspired

by him, a host of social reformers all over India opened a new, glorious page for Indian women. They educated themselves, took part in the Gandhian movement in vast numbers and became equal partners in work everywhere. Interestingly enough, they preferred not to jettison the received tradition that had helped them all along not go down under during the dark centuries in the past. Hence, when I opened the Op-Ed page of The Hindu on January 3 and saw the familiar portrait of Swami Vivekananda and the photograph of young ladies full of the joy of life performing a ritual, I began reading the article. Certainly, the editor of the page

had succeeded in drawing the immediate attention of readers. After I began reading it, I realised how childish an academician can be, and how cobwebbed his mind is when studying the history of the Indian society. After a good bit of verbiage trying to sound knighterrantish by repeating the word masculine, the author makes the pompous (almost laughable) statement: Swami Vivekanandas masculine photographic-pose was only one aspect of the cult of masculinity encouraged and tolerated by nationalism. What the picture represents Actually Prof Srivastava can sit down with a whole portfolio of all the available photographs of the

Swami and peruse each one of them. He will not find even one which will fit in with his boorish description. The one used for the article has eyes gazing with compassion at the sorrows inflicted upon Indian women, and a determination to help them overcome it. He had travelled all over India as a parivrajaka and endured untold hardships and realised that two things in Indian society needed immediate rectification: the condition of women and the condition of Dalits. Towards achieving womens empowerment and caste equality he faced innumerable difficulties and disappointments but he won in the end. He was able to teach even the westerners to look upon women as mothers.

According to him, women were not playthings for men, and womens problems could be solved by true education, which was, according to him, a development of faculty, not an accumulation of words, or as a training of individuals to will rightly and efficiently. So shall we bring to the need of India great fearless women women worthy to continue the traditions of Sanghamittra, Lila, Ahalya Bai, and Mira Bai women fit to be mothers of heroes, because they are pure and selfless, strong with the strength that comes of touching the feet of God. Not male-worship

Such inspiration flowing from him through the nationalist movement laid the red carpet welcome to women to join the Gandhian movement, removing fear and ignorance which had imprisoned them till then. It was Swami Vivekananda who brought to India committed women like Sister Nivedita and Sister Christine whose work for womens education was truly monumental. Not only has the Indian woman received education but she also knows what is good for her, in inherited culture. As for Prof. Srivastavas characterisation of Karva-Chauth as male-worship, does he not know that when Sister Subbulakshmi Ammal founded the Sarada Home (Widows Home) in 1912 at Madras, one of the works

she made her inmates study was the story of Savitri and Satyavan in the Mahabharata? It was because, herself a child widow, she found that Savitri empowered herself before facing Yama by a tri-rattra vrata which was a discipline of meditation, yoga, studies and rituals. In the same way, Sister Subbulakshmi wanted the inmates to empower themselves with education and self-discipline to face life which was very harsh to the widow of those days. Celebrations of joy and the reaffirmation of holy ties is not male-worship. Such attempts to degrade beautiful traditions is a perversion of the mind. Is tying a rakhi to a brother to be considered as male-worship?

If Professor Srivastava wants examples of macho icons, let him seek them in the likes of Dasaratha, who sport many wives. They are a dime a dozen today. If he wants portraits on the same subject, he can have his choice from the various glossy advertisements for mens vests and motorcycles. He ought to know that serious sociological research is not achieved by mudslinging. January 11, 2013 We must be more open in evaluating our heritage Horoscope for all 2013 - Claim your Free Reading from this accurate & talented Astrologer now AboutAstro.com/horoscope SANJAY SRIVASTAVA

It is proper that The Hindu publishes different shades of opinion. It is just as important to hold fast to values of social justice and independent and civil debate. Over the past week or so, I have been subjected to a great deal of personalised comments for an article I wrote in this newspaper (Op-Ed, Taking the aggression out of masculinity, January 3, 2013). The article was only tangentially about Swami Vivekananda, though the majority of respondents have taken that to be its focus. The significant thing for me is not the nature of the attacks on my scholarship or motivations. Rather, it concerns the question: why is it that we are willing to

countenance minute examination of the life and beliefs of public figures such as Gandhiji and Nehru, but not others? Indian culture is not fragile There are no simple answers to this. However, let me begin by saying that the opinions I expressed are not idiosyncratic and individual ones but are based upon what I have learnt from a large number of scholars, activists, journalists and, indeed, those currently protesting against the impact of masculine cultures upon women. So, to use Prema Nandakumars terminology in her article in The Hindu (Op-Ed, He gave us back our dignity, January 10, 2013), there is a considerable

number of childish and boorish people such as myself who believe that Indian culture is no fragile object that will self-destruct at the slightest hint of critical examination. And further, that there is no one version of Indian culture that we should take as representative of what constitutes Indian-ness. That, historically, has been the beauty of a complex culture such as ours. Second, my article was written in the spirit that no social creativity is possible if we continue to cherish our culture simply because it is our culture. There would, then, be no questioning of attitudes of earlier generations by the current ones and certainly very little

questioning prejudices.

of

gendered

Dr. Nandakumar implies that ideal Indian womanhood lies in the person of the mother. Motherhood should, of course, be respected. However, I would like to suggest that the elevation of motherhood to the status of an ideal is part of the problem we need to address, rather than an example of the high status enjoyed by women in Indian society. Put another way, does the idea quoted approvingly by Dr. Nandakumar that women should be pure and selfless ever get applied in the same way to men? Sadly, our crime statistics are full of women

who have suffered the wrath of family and community justice for being impure. Regarding rituals such as Raksha-bandhan and Karva-chauth that she characterises as celebrations of joy, I can only say that while this may be an undeniable aspect for many women, a good number also come to the sad realisation that when it comes to providing a share of family property, brothers are very keen to overlook the reaffirmation of holy ties (as she puts it). I certainly do not believe that I was indulging in mudslinging though, of course, Dr. Nandakumar is entitled to her opinion about what constitutes serious sociological research.

However, any serious appraisal of social and cultural norms must consist of thinking about what is appropriate for the problems of the present, and, the norms of the past are not always a good guide for this task. The voices of many protesting young women can they all be as childish as Dr. Nandakumar says of me? seem to suggest as much. It was a plea My article was not I must emphasise about Swami Vivekananda. Rather, it was a plea to be more open in evaluating Indian heritage. In any case, I wonder if Swami Vivekananda would have

preferred to be considered an infallible godlike figure rather than a complex human being with multiple dimensions. Is that not a lesson Swami Vivekananda might himself have imparted? Finally, while I do not quite understand what Dr. Nandakumar means in stating that I try to sound Knighterrantish by repeating the word masculine (Knight-errants are not the kinds of figures I would wish to emulate!), I certainly hope that others both women and men who share my cobwebbed perspectives will also make public their own opinions and attitudes. That, I believe, will be an important way of ensuring that a life extinguished through an act of indescribable violence has not gone to waste.

January 11, 2013 The rapist in the mirror LlC Jeevan Anand Plan - Invest Rs 4.4K p.m. in LlC Jeevan Anand Plan Get Good Return. Buy Now PolicyMagic.co.in PRAVEEN SWAMI

I remember seeing a documentary about some animal being eaten from behind while its face seemed to register disbelief, fear, and self-hate at its own impotence, recalls Roy Strang, the rapist at the centre of Irvine Welshs supremely disturbing Marabou Stork Nightmares , of one of his victims. That was what she reminded me of, says Strang, watching his victims eyes,

frozen, dead, through the mirror he forced her to hold up to her face as he raped her. Last months gang rape in New Delhi has focussed nationwide attention on the epidemic proportions of sexual violence against women in India. Long overdue debates on criminal justice and gender have begun along, predictably, with bizarre calls for schoolgirls bodies to be concealed under overcoats and curfews. Yet, there have been only the awkward beginnings of a discussion on the problem itself men. It is time, though, to start looking at the rapist in the mirror.

Rituals of masculinity To anyone familiar with young men in Indias cities and towns, Strangs world is far from alien. For many youth worldwide, violence against women a spectrum that runs from gang rape to domestic violence and street sexual harassment is part of the system of masculinitymaking rituals, along with sport, drinking and brawling. 58 per cent of men arrested for rape in India in 2010 were aged 18-30; in the United States, 55 per cent are below the age of 30. 53.92 per cent of men held that year for molestation or sexual harassment were also from the same age group.

This is not to suggest that a dysfunctional masculinity is the root of rape; few human behaviours have a single cause. Yet, from the testimonies of women, we know that this cohort of young men have made homes and streets the site of a pervasive gender terrorism. Rape, though, is something rapists do, not who they are. Precisely why particular individuals find pleasure in inflicting violence on women is a question everyone from evolutionary biologists to cultural theorists have weighed in on; there is no consensus, and may never be. Yet, as Welsh noted, strange behaviour always has a context. Five such contexts suggest themselves as possible

keys to the production of Indias urban-male dysfunction. Together, these contexts ensure young men are rarely fully weaned; able to lead an adult life characterised by agency and individual choice. The consequence is a deep rage that manifests itself in nihilist behaviours. Indias transforming urban economy has, firstly, produced a mass of young, prospectless men. The parents of these children, many first-generation migrants to cities, worked on the land or were artisans. Though this generations position in the economy may have been inequitable, its agency as workers was not. The young, though, find themselves fighting for space in an economy that

offers mainly casual work. This casualisation has come about even as hard-pressed parents are spending ever more on education. Even the pressures on middleclass and lower middle-class men are enormous. Frequently coddled in son-worshipping parents, young men are only rarely able to realise the investment and hopes vested in them. For a second context to hyperviolent masculinity, we must look at culture. Increasingly, cities have no recreational spaces for young men. Films, long one of the few cultural activities that a workingclass audience could participate in, now target lites; movie theatre prices exclude large parts of the youth population. There is

diminishing access to theatre, art, music and sport. In its place, the street becomes the stage for acting out adulthood, through substance abuse and violence. Thirdly, a number of young men, particularly in new urban slums, are being brought up by no-parent families families that fathers have abandoned or are largely absent from, and where mothers work long hours. Elsewhere in the world, too, this social crisis has been linked to sexual violence. South African researcher Amelia Kleijn, in a 2010 study of child rapists, found most had deprived childhoods marked by physical and emotional abuse, as well as neglect.

Fourth, there is a crisis of sexuality. Few men, working class or rich, have access to a sexual culture which allows them sexual freedoms or choices. The crisis is exacerbated by the fact that sections of urban lites participate in a sexual culture which is relatively liberal a culture that young men can watch on television and in public spaces, but never hope to participate in. For some, the sexually independent woman is thus enemy to be annihilated. In his hit song C**t, the rape-valorising rap star Honey Singh voices his yearning to kick a woman after raping her, to drive out the bhoot of ego from her head. Similarly, Strang sees on the streets a wash of blonde and auburn wigs, lipstick smeared on

those deadly pincer-like insect jaws. Commodities Young men of all classes, finally, see women as status-enhancing commodities emulating the long-standing gender privileges tradition has vested in lite men. None of these five contexts is new. Particular stresses linked to the reordering of Indias social fabric, though, are giving new lethality to gender inequity. In a 2008 paper, Jon Wolseth showed how neoliberalism created the conditions for a murderous surge of youth gang violence in the Honduras during the 1980s. Economic policies, he argued, had

not just impoverished the poor; they also tore apart community networks, diminished public spaces and closed the door to political participation. Evangelical Christianity and the assault riflearmed gang emerged as mode of liberation. Elsewhere in Latin America, scholars have observed much the same. In India, womens bodies appear to have become the principal terrain on which male rage is venting itself. It isnt that young Indian men are inherently violent than they were in the past. In 2011, according to the National Crime Records Bureau, 29,937 men between 18 and 30 were arrested for murder. Twenty years earlier, it was 38,961. In 1991,

270,602 men of this age group were arrested for rioting; in 2011, the figure was 72,867. Sexual violence data, though, trends the other way. 8,864 18-30 men were arrested for rape in 1991; 16,528 in 2011. Molestation and sexual harassment arrests from this cohort have also almost doubled, from 23,075 in 1992, the first year for which data is available, to 32,581 in 2011. Lacking agency isnt, obviously, the cause of sexual violence: women arent responding to their disenfranchisement by attacking men; men with power can, and do, rape. The point here is, rather, that the large-scale disempowerment of urban men is

lending intensity to a pre-existing culture of sexual violence. Illusion of empowerment For many men, then, violence against women works much as drugs do for addicts: it offers at least the illusion of empowerment where none exists, fixing feelings of rage and impotence. This, in turn, points to a wider malaise. Marxist scholar Antonio Gramsci noted that Fascism arose in a society where mothers educate their infant children by hitting them on the head with clogs. How men behave on the streets with women, with other men, with animals is taught. In our society, violence is not an

aberration; it is the tie that binds us. In 2007, the Ministry of Women and Child Development surveyed 12,477 children to learn of their experience of abuse. 68.99 per cent of children, over half of them boys, reported suffering physical violence. One in 12 children, again a majority boys, reported suffering sexual violence. It is a staggering fact: half of all Indians have encountered abuse before they became adults. For the overwhelming majority of Indian children, the education in violence begins in the family. The survey found 59 per cent of the 2,245 children who did not go to school located home as a source

of violence. In institutions like orphanages, the survey recorded levels of violence very similar to homes. More than 65 per cent of the 3,163 school children surveyed said they received beatings along with classes in maths, science and languages. Employers of child labourers, interestingly, were significantly less cruel than teachers; 58.7 per cent of working children said they experienced beatings at home, at work, or both. In each of these categories, boys were overrepresented. Maulana Azad Medical College researcher Deepti Pagare discovered, during a survey of boys at New Delhis Child Observation Home, that 76.7 per

cent reported physical abuse. Half of them actually bore clinical evidence of violence the perpetrators, in more than half of all cases, their own fathers. Elsewhere in the world, figures like these would almost certainly have provoked a national scandal followed by demands of criminal prosecutions. Look through Delhis crime statistics, though, and you will find not one father prosecuted for everyday crimes against his son. India needs a masculinity that does not involve violence. Moral sermons, though, wont cut it: respect for women can emerge only from a culture that genuinely values rights for all.

If we are to combat sexual violence in our cities, it is time to begin discussing the dysfunctions of young urban men January 11, 2013 Towards a progressive interpretation of Islam Flight Tickets 1+1 Free - Book a Flight with MakeMyTrip and Get the next Ticket Absolutely Free Makemytrip.com/Buy1Get1Free A. FAIZUR RAHMAN

IN COMPANIONSHIP:In the Koranic conception, marriage is the bonding of two minds which cannot be achieved simultaneously with more than one woman. PHOTO: A.M. FARUQUI In a significant judgment pronounced last month (in State vs. Nadeem Khan case) Delhis Additional Sessions Judge Dr. Kamini Lau called upon religious heads, priests and maulvis to ensure that the religious texts are progressively interpreted and to confirm that it is only those beneficial practices which are in the best interest of all sections of humanity which are encouraged and observed. She was dismissing the anticipatory bail application of a Maulvi accused of forcibly

marrying a young Muslim girl to an already married man who raped her soon after the Nikah. The judges remarks, which form part of her eloquent 14-page order, were in response to the maulvis defence that there was nothing illegal about his performing the Nikah because the Shariah permitted a Muslim man to have four wives at a time. The importance of Dr. Laus order lies in her scholarly refutation of the medieval belief that polygyny enjoys blanket sanction in Islam. Citing Muslim scriptures the judge avers that polygamy is neither mandatory nor encouraged but merely permitted. The Korans conditional endorsement of polygamy stresses that self-

interest or sexual desire should not be the reason for entering into a polygamous marriage because the original purpose of allowing this practice was to protect the social and financial standing of the widows and orphans in their community. Historical context Dr. Lau is absolutely right in her analysis. Indeed, except conditional polygyny, the Koran frowns upon all types of nonmonogamous relationships within in and outside marriage. Significantly, polygyny itself finds mention just once (4:3) in the entire Koran. Yet Muslim men have abused it over centuries without appreciating the spirit

behind its exceptional sanction, which is clearly contextualised in the historical conditions of the time when a large number of women were widowed and children orphaned as Muslims suffered heavy casualties in defending the nascent Islamic community in Medina. Even a simple reading of verses 4: 2, 3 and 127 will show that it was under such circumstances that the Koran allowed conditional polygyny to protect orphans and their mothers from an exploitative society. Verse 4:2 warns caretakers against devouring the assets of orphans either by merging them with their own, or substituting their worthless properties for the good

ones of the orphans. And, if the caretakers fear that they may not be able to do justice to the interests of the orphans in isolation, the next verse allows them to marry their widowed mothers on the condition that the new family would be dealt justly on a par with the existing one. For those who are not up to it, the instruction of the Koran was: Then *marry+ only one. The sanctity of taking care of widows and their children is further emphasised in 4:127: And remember what has been rehearsed unto you in the Book *in 4:2 and 3+ concerning the orphans of women to whom you give not what is prescribed, and yet whom you desire to marry... This proves

that verse 4:3 is not a hedonistic license to marry several women. Furthermore, the Koran idyllically describes the marital couple as spousal mates created to find quiet of mind (7:189) and to dwell in tranquillity (30:21) in the companionship of each other. In fact, verse 7:189, which traces the origin of man to a single cell ( nafsan waahida ), refers to the wife in the singular as zaujaha , thereby emphasising monogamy. Thus, in the Koranic conception, marriage is the emotional bonding of two minds which cannot be achieved simultaneously with more than one woman. Restricted in many countries

For this reason polygyny is severely restricted in many Muslim countries and totally banned in Tunisia and Turkey, a fact pointed out by Dr. Lau in support of her judgment. In Pakistan for instance, Sec. 6 of the Muslim Family Laws Ordinance, 1961 states that no man, during the subsistence of an existing marriage, can contract another marriage without the permission in writing of the Arbitration Council a body consisting of representatives of each of the parties to a matter dealt with under the Ordinance which would grant the sanction applied for after satisfying itself that the proposed marriage is necessary and just.

The Indian Muslim community is perhaps the only Islamic society in the world where utter confusion prevails insofar as the proper definition of Shariah is concerned. Judge Lau brings this up saying, in democratic India, it is time to clear certain misconceptions and misgivings regarding Islam. Merely because the Muhammadan Personnel Law does not stand codified, it does not in any manner entitle a violator/ accused to get away with an interpretation which suits his convenience. Once again she has hit the nail on the head. One fails to understand why the Muslim clerics have always sought to straitjacket the time-transcending polysemic phraseology of the Koran and restrict its meaning to outdated

medieval hermeneutics. It is no wonder that a verse in the Koran (25:30) visualises Prophet Muhammad as complaining to God on the Day of Judgment that after his demise his followers had circumscribed the comprehensive message of the Koran. In this context, one is reminded of the valiant attempt made by the great 14th century jurist Abu Ishaq al-Shatibi of Muslim Spain who in his celebrated legal treatise alMuwafaqaat fi usool al-Shariah developed the concept of Maslaha (public good) as an essential element of his doctrine Maqaasid al-Shariah (Goals of the Shariah) which he formulated to make Islamic law adaptable to social change. Shatibi argued that an

inductive analysis of the injunctions of the Koran and the teachings of the Prophet would reveal that Maslaha is the universal principle that permeates Islam because, the divine intent behind societal sharaai (laws) is the masaalih (benefits, good) of the people, both immediate and future. Therefore, any law that does not have Maslaha as its basis cannot be attributed to the Lawgiver. Surprisingly, even a staunch traditionalist like Ibn al-Qayyim agreed with Shatibi. In his Ilaam al-muwaqqiin he wrote: The Shariah is all justice, kindness, masaalih and hikma *wisdom+. Hence, any rule that departs from justice to injusticefrom Maslaha

to Mafsada Shariah

is

not

part

of

It can, therefore, be stated with a fair amount of certainty that the stagnation of Islamic law in India is a result of ignoring the relevance of public interest in lawmaking. It is time Muslim theologians realised that any interpretation of Islam that is amoral, unfair and inconsistent with principles of natural justice and social ethics, cannot claim to represent the Divine Will, and therefore, does not deserve to be epitomised as the Shariah . (A. Faizur Rahman is secretary general of the Islamic Forum for the Promotion of Moderate

Thought. [email protected] )

E-mail:

The Delhi court judge who rejected bail to a maulvi in a forcible marriage case was right in saying that there is no blanket sanction for polygamy in the Koran January 12, 2013 From incredible India to area of darkness Free Classifieds in India Everything you want, everything you need: Try OLX Free Classifieds! www.olx.in HASAN SUROOR

VOICES:A protest outside the Indian High Commission in London. PHOTO: REUTERS It is the time of the year when British holidaymakers return from India after their Christmas break singing praises of its extraordinary natural beauty, and the warmth of its people. Almost apologetic references to its massive poverty are sought to be cushioned with breathless admiration for the gritty courage of its poor in the face of so much adversity. Not this year, though. The Delhi gang rape case has dealt a blow to the romanticised picture-perfect image of a country at once exotic and modern and turned

the spotlight on its cultural fault lines, especially the misogyny of its men. In newspaper headlines (A society in crisis; The agony of Indias daughters; Indian women need a cultural earthquake) and British correspondents reports from Delhi, theres a whiff of Naipauls infamous description of India as an area of darkness. No more the new India A woman journalist, just back from a vacation in India, wrote of her disillusionment with a country that, she said, she loved. Writing more in anguish than anger, Rosie Millard said: To the casual visitor, the unfolding of this scandal in one of the worlds great

civilisations one held up as a modern economic wonder as well as a historic and cultural one is rather like picking up a beautiful bejewelled quilt, only to find it covers a charnel house. Isnt India meant to be a muddle, but forward-looking, cultured and above all, loving to all things; with a great train system to boot? It seemed so on previous visits. The truth is that the hype over the new post-liberalisation India that had become the stuff of celebratory cover stories and Sunday supplements fizzled out long ago amid concerns over stalled economic reforms and corruption highlighted by the Anna Hazare campaign. The Delhi outrage has fed into that the

perception that the more India changes the more it remains the same, pulled back by outdated instincts. A common theme of the commentary here on the rape case has been that India needs a radical cultural makeover for it to be taken seriously as a truly modern 21st century nation a narrative that some believe seeks to portray violence against women as a particular problem of uncivilized nations, and assert western cultural superiority. A letter to The Times Theres something uncomfortably neocolonial about the way the Delhi gang-rape and

subsequent death of the woman now known as Damini is being handled in the U.K. and U.S. media. While Indias civil and political spheres are alight with protest and demands for changes to the countrys culture of sexual violence, commentators here are using the event to simultaneously demonise Indian society, lionise our own, and minimise the enormity of western rape culture, wrote Emer OToole of Royal Holloway College, University of London, in The Guardian . More than 100 international academics from India, Britain, America and a host of other countries wrote a joint letter to The Times objecting to the comments of its columnist Libby

Purves that India needed a cultural earthquake in order for it to be allowed to hold its head up in the civilised world. In particular, they took exception to her remark that Indian men have murderous, hyena-like male contempt for women. To use such terms, the academics argued, was to vilify half the population of a vast, diverse country and was unhelpful to what should be a global discussion about patriarchy, misogyny and sexual violence. Such comments imply there is no sexual violence in the present-day West when, in fact, it is widespread. Linking rape to a mythical past implies an equally

mythical Western present in which rape has been overcome, and evokes long-standing racist tropes of western progress versus eastern traditionalism, they said. Signatories included Dr. Priyamvada Gopal, University of Cambridge; Dr. Shamira A. Meghani, University of Leeds; Dr. Prerona Prasad, University of Oxford; Professor Prasanta Chakravarty and Professor Brinda Bose, Delhi University; Huma Dar, University of California-Berkeley; Dr. Sirma Bilge, Department of Sociology, Universit de Montreal; Dr. Dina Siddiqi, BRAC University, Dhaka; and Jason A. Beckett, American University in Cairo, among others.

Framing the debate However, to be fair to Ms Purves, a rather blunt old-fashioned feminist, she acknowledged that murderous, hyena-like male contempt is a norm here too. Her article echoed the view of a number of Indian commentators on social networking sites and in print that India has a woman problem. To put it in perspective, this is what she wrote: Britain, in particular, tends to sentimentality about India and it has been easy, despite brave voices from within the country, to ignore the ugly fault line in the worlds biggest democracy. For murderous,

hyena-like male contempt is a norm here too. Despite its modernisations, the country has taken little care to promote serious cultural change where women are concerned. But it is true that some commentators have tended to frame the debate in terms of modern versus traditional societies ignoring the scale of sexual violence in the developed world. As The Guardian writer Libby Brooks pointed out, cultural superiority is not within the purview of countries with a rape conviction rate like Britains. The acceptance that sexual violence is a global challenge is not to deny that it may have a

local or national character demanding tailored solutions. Understanding rape as a universal also means understanding that rape culture comprises not only unambiguous misogyny of the kind laid bare in India, she wrote. Official figures, out last week, revealed how poor Britains own record is on tackling sexual violence with hundreds of convicted sex offenders, including rapists, getting away simply with warnings or community sentences. Campaigners described such sentences as an insult to the victims. These figures are horrendous and we are disturbed that cases get to court and receive such a low

sentence it trivialises the victims experience and the impact the assault has had on them. To endure a rape trial is a further violation of your dignity, and for your rapist to be found guilty and then simply given a community sentence is the final slap in the face, said Jo Wood of the campaign group Rape Crisis. Poor though Britains record on punishing sex offenders may be, the fact remains that the streets of major British cities are much safer for women than Indian metros. What happened in Delhi on the night of December 16 will not happen in London. And thats a big deal. Ask any woman.

Some British media coverage of the Delhi outrage tended towards notions of western cultural superiority, enough to provoke a group of academics to make a strong protest January 12, 2013 Judiciarys assault on democracy Online IAS Preparation - Complete Material,250 Unit Tests 16 All India Tests with analysis www.byjusclasses.com A.G. NOORANI

The judgment delivered on September 13, 2012 by Justice Swatanter Kumar, on behalf of himself and Justice A.K. Patnaik, belongs to an impressive lineage of Supreme Court rulings which

create havoc and confusion in institutions and even in the conduct of examinations of which its judges were blissfully unaware. That this one called for a complete overhaul of the system of the Central Information Commission (CIC) and the many States Information Commissions is the least of its blemishes. What is of graver import and long-term consequence is that it is a wanton and reckless assault on parliamentary democracy. Intemperate comments Proceedings for its review had to be halted because its author Justice Swatanter Kumar retired last month and was immediately appointed Chairman of the

National Green Tribunal; but not before delivering intemperate comments during the review proceedings. Like almost all Supreme Court judgments, this one is rich in florid prose, disdainful of brevity and is animated by a desire to legislate. A good copy editor would have reduced its 107 pages to onethird. The issue before the court was simple. Section 12 (5) and (6) of the Right to Information Act, 2005 prescribe, respectively, qualifications and disqualifications of the CIC and Information Commissioners. S. 15 (5) and (6) replicate them for their counterparts in the States.

Briefly, the petition contended that the criteria for eligibility did not specify the qualifications or consultation with the judiciary. They perform judicial or quasijudicial functions and should, therefore, have judicial experience. The Act must also prescribe a mechanism for consultation with the judiciary for such appointments. S. 12 (6) of the Act which states the disqualifications is simplicity itself. The Chief Information Commissioner or an Information Commissioner shall not be a Member of Parliament or Member of the Legislature of any State or Union Territory, as the case may be, or hold any other office of profit or connected with any

political party or carrying on any business or pursuing any profession. How anyone can possibly object to these bars passes comprehension. Judge Swatanter Kumars objection takes ones breath away as does his reading down of its terms. He holds it to have an element of uncertainty and indefiniteness. It is difficult to say what the person eligible under the provision should be doing and for what period. The section does not specify any such period. Normally, the persons would fall under one or the other unacceptable categories. To put it differently, by necessary implication, it excludes

practically all classes while not specifying as to which class of persons is eligible to be appointed to that post. The exclusion is too vague, while inclusion is uncertain. One would have thought that the exclusion of legislators, holders of office of profit, politicians, businessmen and professionals leaves open an entire range of persons to select from. The statute book abounds with bars such as these. The judge says that it debars all persons and asks if anyone, who is an elected representative, in government service, or one who is holding an office of profit, carrying on any business or profession, is ineligible in terms of Section 12 (6), then

the question arises as to what class of persons would be eligible. The Section is silent on that behalf. But the criteria for eligibility is set out in S. 12 (5) and disqualification is S. 12 (6). The judge finds a way out to save S. 12 (6) from being struck down as bad in law by wrecking it. We would prefer to interpret the provisions of Section 12 (6) as applicable post-appointment rather than pre-appointment of the Chief Information Commissioner and Information Commissioners. In other words, these disqualifications will only come into play once a person is appointed as Chief Information

Commissioner/Information Commissioner at any level and he will cease to hold any office or profit or carry any business or pursue any profession that he did prior to such appointment. This perverse misreading of the provision subverts the entire scheme of the Act and flouts the will of Parliament so clearly expressed. By Judge Swatanter Kumars logic, it would be open to the government of the day to pack the Information Commissions, Central and State, with legislators from the ruling party, party officials, civil servants and others, provided only that they resigned from their jobs to fill these plum postings. Such people do not turn Becketts. The object clearly was to

exclude this category, not include it after its purification by resignation. The statute book abounds with such sensible bars. Parliament was justified in laying them down. Judges Kumar and Patnaik subvert its will and do so by a reasoning which is shockingly absurd. The strictures by Lord Chancellor Simonds on a similar excess by Lord Demmings are apt a naked usurpation of the legislative function under the disguise of interpretation. The ruling is no better on the provision for eligibility. S. 12 (5) says: The Chief Information Commissioner and Information Commissioners shall be persons of

eminence in public life with wide knowledge and experience in law, science and technology, social service, management, journalism, mass media or administration and governance. Uncertain tenor The Bench holds, however, that the terminology used by the legislature, such as mass-media or administration and governance, are terms of uncertain tenor and amplitude. It is somewhat difficult to state with exactitude as to what class of persons would be eligible under these categories. The legislature in its wisdom has chosen not to provide any specific qualification, but has primarily prescribed wide

knowledge and experience in the cited subjects as the criteria for selection. Indeed it holds that the qualifications prescribed *S. 12 (5)+ conflict with the disqualifications in sub-section (6). To sustain their constitutionality, the bar is thus judicially modified to apply after appointment, and the qualifications themselves are modified to plant judges on the Commissions. The right to do so is boldly stated: The Courts can also bridge the gaps that have been left by the legislature inadvertently. Gaps are detected where none exist and are filled in by an improper exercise of judicial

power, in breach of the fundamentals of parliamentary democracy. Piling error upon error, the judges themselves venture to lay down qualifications a basic degree in the respective field practice in law for 20 years and a procedure for consultation with the Chief Justice of India and the Chief Justices of the High Courts. Twelve directions are given. The Almighty was content with 10. Parliament could have laid down that the CIC and the ICs be presided over by judges. It chose consciously and wisely not to do so. What have the judges to show for themselves as they ran Commissions of Inquiry and the Press Council? The Kudal

Commission on the Gandhi Peace Foundation, the Thakkar Commission on Indira Gandhis assassination, the J.S. Verma and the M.C. Jain Commissions on different aspects of Rajiv Gandhis assassination, the Ranganath Misra Commission on the Delhi rots, the Wadhwa Commission on the Staines murders and the Lieberhan Commission on the demolition of the Babri Masjid? Consultation with the CJI is no safeguard. Justice R.S. Pathak, CJI, was consulted on the appointment of judges to the Fairfax Commission. He opted for Judges M.P. Thakkar and S. Natarajan, a safe pair of hands. How have successive judges of the Supreme Court conducted

themselves on the Press Council of India? At least six CJIs left office in the last quarter century under a cloud. On November 22, hearing the petition for review, the bench as correspondents timidly reported, probably for Justice Kumar said that the CIC and ICs are persons who have been in the governments good books. However, on September 19, a day after the Centre moved to appoint Judge Swatanter Kumar as head of the National Green Tribunal, another Bench comprising Justices G.S. Singhvi and S.J. Mukhopadhyay remarked that appointments to tribunals, including the NGT, had raised serious issues relating to integrity

of judges and that there is a competition among the judges to get those appointments. This is one aspect of the unfortunate ruling; another is its obstruction of the democratic process. The crux of the matter is that Parliament is entitled to lay down the criteria and the government, accountable to it, is entitled to choose persons who meet the criteria. The courts have no business to impose their views. Classic warning Justice Frankfurters judgment in Minersville School District v. Gobitis (310 U.S. 586, 1940) is a classic warning; Judicial review, itself a limitation on popular

government, is a fundamental part of our constitutional scheme. But to the legislature no less than to the courts is committed the guardianship of deeply cherished liberties Where all the effective means of inducing political changes are left free from interference, education in the abandonment of foolish legislation is itself a training in liberty. To fight out the wise use of legislative authority in the forum of public opinion and before legislative assemblies rather than to transfer such a contest to the judicial arena, serves to vindicate the selfconfidence of a free people. That spirit is undermined by judicial excesses.

(A.G. Noorani is an advocate, Supreme Court of India, and a leading constitutional expert. His latest book, Article 370: A Constitutional History of Jammu and Kashmir , was published by Oxford University Press in 2011 )

The Supreme Court ruling on the eligibility criteria for Information Commissioners is based on absurd reasoning and subverts the will of Parliament January 12, 2013 Why the middle class is revolting Flight Tickets 1+1 Free - Book a Flight with MakeMyTrip and Get the next Ticket Absolutely Free Makemytrip.com/Buy1Get1Free

THE VANGUARD:A 2012 picture of a demonstration against austerity measures in Madrid, Spain. PHOTO: AP Saskia SassenPHOTO: PAUL NORONHA Saskia Sassen speaks with a formidable energy as she takes her audience through the architecture of globalisation, the Global Street, cities and financialisation. You may not make all the right connections at once but you are riveted. She was in Mumbai recently to inaugurate a workshop on Subaltern Urbanism, hosted by Columbia Universitys Mumbai Global Centre, with support from the Women Creating Change Project.

She is the Robert S. Lynd professor of Sociology at Columbia University, and co-chair of the Committee on Global Thought. Prof. Sassen spoke to Meena Menon about what she calls the grand larceny of the global corporate system through its access to state resources and peoples taxes in the form of bailouts, and how this has led to a rupture between the state and the people across the globe. Excerpts. How do you view the recent massive protests in New Delhi? What is your view of this vis--vis the Global Street? How would you interpret this?

In reality, these kinds of protests are happening all over the world, around specific issues in each country. It becomes the occasion for actually enacting a much larger project than is indicated by whatever issue is the immediately visible complaint in a city, a country. For instance in Tel Aviv, the starting point was the high prices of apartments. About 1,00,000 people set up tents in central areas to protest, the first time this happened in Israel. The second point to make here is that there is a lot of suffering and impoverishment and degradation of conditions of life today that is invisible. The people might be living in the same houses, but inside the houses there is growing poverty and impoverishment. If

you are on the outside, literally, you dont know whats happening inside. But inside there might be a crisis developing. We now know in Latin America, we have had professors and housewives imagine, two very respectable sections of society do food riots. They went to get food. That is pretty basic. How has it got to this behind the facades of middle class neighbourhoods? In my new book, I am looking at so-called rich governments in rich countries. They dont have the money to develop some of the basic infrastructure. I have a fantastic little table that shows the incredibly sharp growth since the 1980s in the deficit of the governments in rich countries.

Greece and Spain are simply the vanguard. At the same time, corporate profits have risen sharply over the same period. The middle classes, modest enterprises, and the state are growing their debts and the corporate sector, including finance, is growing its wealth. So my extreme way of putting it this is grand larceny, where you go with a truck, you dont just steal a few things but you steal the whole house. In its relationship to citizens, modest enterprises (including small farmers), and to the state, the global corporate sector has committed a form of grand larceny. Do you think a new world order is in the making? How does the

concept of Global Street link with the new changes? I dont know if a new world order is in the making but there is a new geography of privilege and disempowerment that cuts across the old divide of rich and poor countries, or North and South. And the ones that are emerging as the contesting actors are young men and women of the middle classes. They are the ones losing the most, who feel the social contract with the state is broken. They are also largely a consuming class. Their parents and they themselves have largely consumed their democracy, their citizenship. I like to ask: who knows how to make in this world, make the social, make an

economy, make the civic? Mostly it is elites and the very poor, because they have had to. But we the middle classes were converted into consumers and the main beneficiaries of much of the resources of the state, from schools and hospitals to roads and electricity, and we paid for it through our taxes. But too much of our taxes now goes to bail out banks and luxury projects... and that is why the social contract between the liberal state and the middle classes is broken. All of this is also part of my notion of the Global Street. It is one of the places to meet, recognise each other, strategise, become witnesses to historical processes,

including small, specific initiatives of powerful actors that can have negative effects on some social sectors. I am not making the argument that this is a historic vanguard. It might or not. You are a key figure in a long and distinguished tradition of urban sociology. Can you say why the city is a key space of research for you? In many ways I am not an urbanist. I am interested in studying complex but open conditions or systems. And there are few conditions that are as complex and as open and mutating as a city. So the city is an extraordinary window into all kinds of missions and never more

than today, because today, one of the interesting developments is that many non urban processes and actors now have also an urban moment in their trajectories. So being in a city, being alert to its complexity and its incompleteness is a way of understanding more than the urban. Also interesting is the citys incompleteness it gives it a capacity to mutate. Think about it. The city has outlived empires, republics, corporations and financial firms. Why? Because cities are complex but incomplete. A financial firm might be complex but its closed and therein lies its capacity to go down.

What about your study on the Global Street and the link between power and the powerless. The Global Street in my work is such a space where those without access to the formal instruments for making a building, a history, a politics, a difference can get to make. I think the Occupy Movements, the Arab Spring, and others made history even if they did not become empowered. The Global Street does not have to be a street. It can be an empty parking place, or whatever. You spoke of the rise of the middle class and the disconnect with the liberal state. Can you elaborate.

The liberal state is in deep decay. And the social contract of the liberal state is with the middle class, much more so than the very poor and the very rich. Today we see a first generation in the middle classes since World War II which is poorer and more hopeless than their parents and grandparents. One way of putting it is that the deal between the middle class and the liberal state has broken down. Privatisation of everything is one manifestation. Reduction of social benefits of all sorts is another. It is happening everywhere where you have this kind of state, which, of course can also be a military state such as Egypt insofar as it has

developed a range of state supports for a vast share of the population; public schools, public hospitals, housing, retirement benefits, etc. The point that I am trying to make is that there might be far more radical change than is evident. The French revolution took 10 years, it was not just the storming of the Bastille, the most visible moment of a long process. Before that visible moment, the elites might have known about the complaints of the masses but felt that nothing serious was going to happen even though their world was falling apart. [email protected]

I dont know if a new world order is in the making but there is a new geography of privilege and disempowerment that cuts across the old divide of rich and poor countries January 14, 2013 In corporal punishment we are all complicit SRM University- India No1 Admissions for 2013 SRM Engineering - Download or Apply Online Now! www.srmuniv.ac.in/applications YOGENDER DUTT

In the context of the cruel thrashing and consequent death of a small boy, Aslam Ansari, in a

Betul school in Madhya Pradesh at the hands of his teachers, Prof. Krishna Kumars analysis ( The Hindu , editorial page, The death of a small boy, December 18, 2012), of the unsettled social location and poor hierarchical status of primary school teachers, is impeccable and succinct. But, I fail to understand the precise and immediate link between the merciless beating and consequent death of the hapless boy on the one hand and the poor training and salaries of the teachers who allegedly killed him on the other. The kind of cause-and-effect relationship that he has tried to establish in this incident certainly does not exist.

It is unequivocally clear to every citizen of the country that under the legal framework in place, no individual can cause bodily harm to any other individual. If we still persist with such an argument, we run the risk of shifting the culpability of the individuals involved in the crimes, often of a very serious nature, off their heads simply because the accused are primary school teachers who have not been given proper training and are ill-paid. In recent years, whenever such an incident has happened in our schools and then the resultant outcry, there has been an almost knee-jerk sentimental reaction from various quarters suggesting that primary school teachers

alone should not be blamed as they have also been wronged by the system. This argument in the favour of the displacement of anger often serves to brush aside the complex processes at work in the schools of a stratified society like ours. In search of a source of the teachers anger, commentators have often, and rightly so, found the larger system or the state as the main or equally serious culprit. But the diagnosis should not and does not end here. To pursue the diagnosis of the problem further, lets go back to a very pertinent question that Prof. Krishna Kumar has asked: Who has given teachers unhindered

and complete access to the childrens mind and body in a school setting? He suggests that this authority over childrens lives vested in the teachers has been delegated to them by the state. However, it can be argued that the state is not the only entity that has delegated this authority to the teachers. We need to look for the other source of this authority too. Parental indifference The admission process for the new academic session in various schools is about to begin. One wonders whether the parents of prospective students would be interested in knowing and ensuring whether the school concerned has the right policies

and practices in place to tackle the problem of corporal punishment. In fact, for the majority of parents, the concern for the safety of their wards has a flip side to it the stricter the school, the better it is for the future of the child. Philippe Aris in his wonderfully researched book The Centuries of Childhood , tells us that a couple of centuries ago, children were considered as infirms requiring greater discipline and stricter principles. I doubt if popular perceptions about childhood in many societies have changed in any significant way. The belief that strict discipline has beneficial effects for growing children seems to rest on a

seriously faulty assumption. The assumption is that children are by nature problematic and therefore need strict disciplining; unless such disciplining is exercised, the child is sure to be spoiled. It suggests that many parents themselves dont have faith in the essential goodness of their children. This distrust results in the breakdown of communication between the child and parents. We dont need to go far in search of evidence of this lack of communication between them. It has been documented repeatedly that children, when faced with difficult situations in school, dont share their agony with their parents. Most parents come to know of the actual magnitude of

the problem only when something unexpected has happened to their child. Hence, alongside the state, this breakdown of communication between the parents and their children also contributes to the sustenance of absolute control of teachers over the mind and body of the children they are teaching. They become, in loco parentis . Another important source of teachers uncontested authority over the affairs of the school and the lives of the children has to be found in larger debates about the state of education. In our country, there is a profoundly influential social and

policy discourse which has conveniently chosen to either ignore or make childrens voices invisible from the public domain. There is no dearth of ceremonial holding of events such as childrens parliament, or childrens summits and so on, selfindulgently claiming to represent childrens voices. However if we try to look for a more sincere and realistic presence of childrens voices in the discussions on education and the general state of schools, in most cases we are sure to draw a blank. This discussion is decisively shaped by a number of surveybased studies such as the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), Programme for International

Student Assessment (PISA), District Information System for Education (DISE), etc. Most of these national survey studies are held every year. Their most prominent claim is that they are tracking the health of education in the country. Unfortunately, none of the above and many other such surveys dont have even one indicator or even a word in their reports, often running into several hundred pages, on the issue of corporal punishment in particular and childrens physical and emotional well-being in schools in general. Apparently, childrens voices and well-being are not important enough concerns for the analysts

and the surveyors who design and implement these surveys. According to the study titled Child Abuse in India-2007 commissioned by the Ministry of Women and Child Development, Government of India, every two out of three school children reported facing corporal punishment. In such a situation, it is not difficult to imagine the mental agony that the surveyors going into the schools must be going through on a daily basis. When an investigator armed with socially sensitive and cutting edge survey tools goes in a school and tries to take stock of the growth in the reading and arithmetic abilities of children, she must be engaged in an intense personal

battle to keep her eyes shut to the grim and widespread reality of corporal punishment. In the din of achievement assessments, her survey design deliberately mutes childrens day-to-day experiences of authority in the school. The result being we dont have enough number of credible studies about the changes that might have come in the childrens perception and experiences of authority in schools since the 2007 report. No statistics are available to prove that the situation has improved or has worsened. Socio-cultural dimensions Since we dont have a comprehensive assessment of the

problem, we also dont have a clear idea of the socio-economic and cultural dimensions of it either. Socially and economically, who are the children who face such cruel treatment the most? Hazarding a guess is not difficult there is documented evidence of it in the form of Dalits, tribals, minorities and womens experiences but this question requires a much more detailed treatment. For the moment, it is enough to flag it to suggest that the diagnosis of the problem of corporal punishment in the schools and the quest for the sources of teachers authority must also proceed in this direction.

In conclusion, there is no denying the fact that for a proper discharge of duties entrusted to the teachers, a respectable salary with safety of tenure, and above all, good training of sufficient duration and intensity is a nonnegotiable must. Their training and preparation should have the components of respect for the rights and the individuality of a child. Such training can inculcate in them a critical outlook towards the social sanctions that have made the ill-treatment of children possible. On the basis of such training they can be expected to transform into agents of change and stop being stooges of a system based on sheer inequality and violence that has served them no good either.

But , if such a package is not offered to them they have no valid reason to turn their anger and frustration towards children. And whenever they do, we must not forget that alongside the state, the parents, the academia and the civil society through their selective phases of silence, through acts of externalising ones guilt and by not being alert and/or interested parties are also complicit in their crimes to a significant degree. January 14, 2013 Two years without polio Immunogenicity Testing Episcreen T cell assay technology for biologics www.antitope.co.uk T. JACOB JOHN

In the 1980s, only three decades ago, 200,000 to 400,000 children, all under 5 years, were afflicted with polio paralysis annually in India. That was a daily average of 500 to 1000 cases. By the age of six, eight among 1,000 children already had polio paralysis; two would have died. In other words, one per cent of infants born were destined to develop polio. Global movement In 1988, India joined the global movement for polio eradication at a time when we had not even succeeded in bringing polio under control. Control status required at least 95 per cent reduction. In

1978, India launched the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) with BCG and DPT vaccines. The oral polio vaccine (OPV) was introduced the next year. Natural polioviruses are called wild to distinguish them from vaccine polioviruses that constitute OPV. Vaccine viruses are attenuated from wild viruses which means they have lost most of their virulence, the ability to cause paralysis and the ability to spread fast among children. These two are the dreaded qualities of wild polioviruses. By 1988, diphtheria, whooping cough and neonatal tetanus had declined to control levels as a result of EPIs efforts. But polio did

not come under control showing that OPV was not as effective in India as in the West or in China. There, just three or four doses protected all children. In India, we had to give many more doses for equal effect. From 1994, India began nationwide OPV campaigns (called pulse immunisation) two per year to give additional doses to all under-five children irrespective of the number of doses already given. That resulted in effectively controlling polio by 2000. One of the three types of polioviruses, wild type 2, was even eradicated by October 1999 when the average number of OPV doses had reached six per child. The type 2 component of OPV was not only more effective against that type,

but it also inhibited the effect of types 1 and 3. That left India with the struggle to eradicate wild types 1 and 3 using a blunt weapon, the trivalent OPV (tOPV), containing types 1, 2 and 3, which is necessary to attack all three viruses simultaneously. In the Gangetic plain States, particularly Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, 9-10 pulse immunisation campaigns were conducted annually from 2004 to 2010. We then developed OPV containing just type 1 to make the tool sharper against the type 1 wild virus. That is called monovalent OPV (mOPV-1). Eventually, India made bivalent OPV (bOPV) with types 1 and 3. Remember, we did not have wild type 2 virus since

1999. With new tools and covering almost100 per cent children in their homes, while travelling, in brick-kiln and sugarcane fields where temporary migrant labour set up homes, wild polioviruses had no place to hide. We succeeded in stopping the transmission of type 3 in 2010 and type 1 in 2011. The last child with wild virus polio was detected in Howrah, West Bengal, with the onset of paralysis on January 13, 2011. Since then, only bOPV has been used for immunisation campaigns in U.P. and Bihar, while tOPV is used in routine EPI and national pulse immunisation campaigns twice each year. How sure are we that wild polioviruses have been totally

banished? There is a solid body of evidence to show this. All hospitals and clinics that attend to sick children have been networked to report any illness that even remotely resembles polio. Such illness is called acute flaccid paralysis (AFP). Stool samples from every child with AFP are collected and tested for the presence of polioviruses. Every poliovirus so detected is further tested to distinguish wild poliovirus from vaccine poliovirus. When a lot of OPV is given to children, many with AFP would have vaccine polioviruses. That is to be expected. Sewage samples are collected every week from several wards of Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Patna. During 2011 and 2012, all sewage samples

were consistently negative for wild polioviruses (but with plenty of vaccine viruses). In northern India, the last footholds of wild polioviruses, the second half of each year was the season of high wild virus transmission. We passed two high seasons in 2011 and 2012 without a single case. India has truly succeeded, silencing the many prophets of failure. Highly contagious Wild polioviruses are highly contagious illustrated by some 50 episodes of international importations to countries that had once eliminated them using OPV. We had exported wild viruses to Nepal and Bangladesh in our

neighbourhood, and to Bulgaria, Angola, China and Tajikistan, to name some distant ones. Now India is polio-free and vulnerable to importation from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria the three countries that have not yet eliminated wild polioviruses. We cannot lower our guard and must continue pulse immunisations as though importation is imminent. India has five points of bordercrossing with Pakistan: two in Jammu-Kashmir, two in Punjab, and one in Rajasthan. At every point, individuals are given one dose of tOPV when they enter India. What was very remarkable was that Indias money went into the lions share of expenditure for

polio eradication in the country, thus easing up global funds for use in other countries that needed them more than we do. India spent about Rs 1000 crore every year since 2000. The rationale Many have questioned the wisdom of spending such large amounts on one childhood disease. Was polio worth eradicating? From a humanitarian viewpoint as well as human rights angle no child deserved to be paralysed by a preventable disease. We know the struggle we had to go through merely to keep polio under control. Eradication is the best form of control. Once affected with polio, many children

are neglected, do not complete high school, take up simple jobs like bicycle repair, managing telephone booths, etc. The disability-determined productivity loss may be taken as about half of the gross domestic product per capita. That amounts to approximately Rs 50,000 per year; cumulated over 30 years of productive life, India was losing Rs. 15 lakhs per person for a staggering Rs 45,000 crore per annum loss to the domestic economy from just one disease, polio, that affected 300,000 children each year. Controlling diseases that affect productivity is indeed a development activity. Eradicating polio is an investment. The absence of polio is both a

measure of, and a means to, development. The National Polio Eradication Certification Committee will confirm eradication of wild viruses and review the secure containment of laboratory storage of wild poliovirus strains or specimens likely to contain them before certifying India free of wild viruses. The Committee will wait for three years from the last virus detection before certification procedures, expected after January 2014. Thereafter, India will use only bOPV; later that will also be withdrawn, globally, synchronously. These rules of polio eradication end game have been drawn up by the World Health Organisation and were

endorsed by the World Health Assembly in 2012. In order not to create any polio immunity vacuum, the inactivated poliovirus vaccine will be introduced and sustained for at least five years. Polio eradication will then mean no infection with any poliovirus, wild or vaccine. January 14, 2013 Oscar nomination, a high note for Carnatic music Tata AIG MediPrime - Cashless Claim Approval In 4 Hours. Tax Saving u/s 80D. Buy Now TataAIGMediPrime.com

Bombay KUMAR

JayashriPHOTO:

S.S.

Carnatic vocalist Bombay Jayashri who has been nominated for an Oscar along with Mychael Danna in the Original Song category for Pis Lullaby in the film Life of Pi tells K.T. Jagannathan that she hopes this will make more people listen to Carnatic music. Excerpts. Describe the journey leading up to the Oscar nomination. Who were those involved in it? We recorded the song in Bombay with Tanay Gajjar, the revered sound expert in AVA-Studio. Tanay is an artiste himself. The song was recorded in December 2011. A lot of the mixing was done in Los Angeles. Since Mychael Danna and Ang Lee had worked closely with

Tanay in earlier projects, they wanted to record the whole thing in his studio in Mumbai. And, they wanted to do it in December (in 2010). I was praying that it wouldnt clash with my December season concerts in Chennai. Luckily, the recording happened between December 4 and December 10, 2010. We all stayed close to his studio for the whole week. We worked from 9.45 in the morning till very late in the night. We exchanged constantly with them in New York. Tanays studio was our home for the week, and we worked like a family. A lot of discussion had gone into each and every word and syllable of the song. It was a lot of hard work.

What does this Oscar nomination mean to you? Where do you takeoff from here? It means so much to me, Indian music and musicians. I feel I have been chosen to represent them all. I really dont know where I go from here. But I am just grateful for the moment. Thats all I can think of at the moment. The descendants of the Malayalam poet Irayimman Thampi have alleged that you have lifted the lines from his lullaby Omanathinkal Kidavo. What do you say? The words and expressions in Pis Lullaby are that of love and

affection expressed commonly by a mother to a child, such as Kuil , Mayil , Chanda , Sooraj , etc.The directors of the film wanted a song as I would sing for my own little one, as a mother would sing for a child. Kanne , kanmaniye and the like are the universal ways a mother would call her child. Some of these find expressions in Sangam Tamil literature, Azhwar pasurams , especially Periazhwars, Andal pasurams ...We are influenced by the things we are called and referred to by our parents in our childhood. And if they call us Kanne , Mayile , we would refer to our kids as Kanne , Mayile .

How could the Oscar nomination impact the Carnatic musician in you? The Oscar nomination reaffirms my belief in the immense power and the reach of our music. What fallout will your nomination have on Carnatic music? I hope it means more people will listen to this beautiful music. What kind of responsibility does this cast on you? Definitely, it adds responsibility. It will make me to continue to keep working hard. I feel it is the duty of every artiste to increase the visibility of Carnatic music. We

have to do it draw the audience closer to us without diluting the format. Can this bring about a change in the audience profile to your concerts? May be it could result in a change. In fact, I have been getting a lot of mails from university students from Beijing who have listened to this song. They are keen to know about my work, and about Carnatic music. They even want me to recommend what they should listen to in YouTube. [email protected]

I feel it is the duty of every artiste to increase the visibility of Carnatic music. We have to do it ... without diluting the format. January 15, 2013 With Mali, soft Hollande shifts image Sunglasses @ Rs.399 - Make a smart statement w/t stylish sunglasses @ just Rs 399. Shop Now www.lenskart.com/sunglasses STEVEN ERLANGER

ONTO THE FRONT LINE:Throughout his career in the

Socialist Party,Mr. Hollande has been criticised and even ridiculed for being compromising, but he has always said that his critics underestimate him. Here the President is delivering the New Year speech atthe Elysee Palace in Paris. PHOTO: AFP President Franois Hollande of France has regularly been criticised as indecisive, even complacent. But the events of the last few days will go some way toward changing his image, as Mr. Hollande has moved swiftly to use the French military in Mali and Somalia after pulling off an important compromise with domestic unions over job creation. The sudden French military intervention in Mali, which took

only half a day to set in motion, together with a bold, if failed, hostage rescue mission in Somalia, have displayed Mr. Hollande in a more sombre, decisive light that could represent a turning point for his presidency. The French, like the Americans, judge presidents on their ability to make tough decisions, and there are few tougher ones than to send young soldiers into battle. Widespread support While the future of the Mali intervention is unclear, it has begun well, with French forces hitting two columns of Islamist rebels with jet fighters and attack helicopters and appearing to halt a rebel march south toward the

capital, Bamako. Mr. Hollandes actions have garnered widespread political support in France and abroad, from African countries, the United States and Britain, all of which have promised to move more quickly to help Mali recover a vast piece of land lost months ago to the rebels. Even the failure of the raid in Somalia, in which two French commandos died and the hostage is believed to have been killed by his captors, does not seem to have hurt Mr. Hollande. Many of his countrymen do not expect warfare to be risk-free, and France is seized by both worries about the rise of radical Islam and the plight of several French hostages in North Africa believed to be held

by religious extremists. This is the first occasion Hollande had or seized upon to act decisively, without the sort of waffling that had appeared to be his trademark, said Franois Heisbourg, a defence expert at the Foundation for Strategic Research in Paris. So in that sense, it changes his image instantaneously. Throughout his career in the Socialist Party, Mr. Hollande has been criticised and even ridiculed for being soft and compromising, likened in the early days to a wobbly custard dessert called Flanby. But he has always said that his critics underestimate him, and his victory last May over the

energetic incumbent, Sarkozy, surprised many.

Nicolas

Now Mr. Hollande has demonstrated that he can decide on matters of war and peace, which in the French system, as in the U.S., is very important, Mr. Heisbourg said. Obama-like moment Until you prove that, you havent proved much, he said, comparing the impact of Mr. Hollandes actions with that of President Obamas decision to approve the raid on Osama bin Laden. A cartoon on Saturday in the centrist newspaper Le Parisien showed Mr. Hollande as

commander in chief, with a bystander saying, Must admit that sometimes he surprises. On Sunday, Bruno Jeudy, an editor at the newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche , wrote: Finally President! Finished, the hesitant and nonchalant Franois Hollande of the first months of his mandate. Like many, Mr. Jeudy noted that once begun, the operation in Mali to help dismantle a safe haven for radicals linked to terrorist groups will be long and difficult. (In the same newspaper, Dominique de Villepin, a former Foreign Minister, warned that the operation in Mali was likely to fail because it had too many ambitious goals.)

Wars are rarely popular, Mr. Jeudy said. But by putting on the uniform of a war leader, he rose to the rank of his predecessors. He also lowered the domestic pressure on him to back off his proposal to legalise same-sex marriage, turning the national conversation more toward foreign policy. Agreement with unions Mr. Hollande, whose Socialist Party and its allies control the legislature, has vowed to push through the bill, saying that policy will not be made in the streets. But he has refused to allow some of his own legislators to attach a

provision to allow state financing for procreation assistance to same-sex women couples. In both instances, Mr. Hollande has again shown his ability to make a decision and keep it, as well as working to manage his own party. Similarly, after months of negotiations, Mr. Hollande and his government were able to announce late on Friday an agreement between entrepreneurs and trade unions over how to liberalise the labour market, to make it easier to hire young people, who are facing unemployment levels nearing 25 per cent. While the details are vague, and the impact on unemployment may

not be big, Mr. Hollande has managed to get some concessions from Frances famously strong unions without a strike. That was especially important for Mr. Hollande, given the ridicule produced by the actor Grard Depardieus feud with the government over high taxes favoured by the Socialists and a ruling that a 75 per cent tax rate on the rich was unconstitutional. For Mr. Hollande to have succeeded with the unions and corporate leaders was vital. Failure would have been seen as disastrous for his ability to carry the country, however incrementally, toward improved competitiveness and lower budget deficits.

There was even praise from a sharp critic, the business leader Laurence Parisot. The deal will change life for businesses in France, she said. This marks the advent of a culture of compromise after decades of a philosophy of social antagonism, she said. The complications of war are many, but for now, joked Mr. Heisbourg, the defence expert, it seems like springtime in Holland, a play on the Presidents name. The French dont know yet if hes really competent, he said. But he shows little sign of stress or unease, and he certainly looks

relaxed. (Arthur Touchot contributed reporting.) New York Times News Service

A demonstration that he can decide on matters of war and peace, which in the French system, as in the U.S., is very important January 15, 2013 Overcome by a sense of betrayal Sunglasses @ Rs.399 - Make a smart statement w/t stylish sunglasses @ just Rs 399. Shop Now www.lenskart.com/sunglasses PREM SHANKAR JHA

The torrent of anger that erupted all over the country after the 23year-old physiotherapy student in Delhi whom the media named Nirbhaya was raped and thrown out of a moving bus has obscured a profoundly disturbing anomaly: the rape was a criminal act committed by individuals. But most of the anger of the public has been directed at the government. Barring a few lapses, the Central and State governments acted promptly, and with commendable efficiency. The Delhi police captured the alleged rapists within hours and the government spared no expense in its attempt to save her life. The police also showed uncharacteristic restraint an in

dealing with the protesters. To control the crowds with a minimum of violence, policemen put themselves repeatedly in harms way. A constable, P.C. Tomar, laid down his life doing his duty. Many others were injured. The Delhi High Court and the State government took the pent up grievances of womens associations and other human rights groups to heart and acted speedily to meet their demands. The former set up five special courts to hear the backlog of rape cases. The Lt. Governor made it mandatory for police stations to register all complaints of rape and other crimes against women. So why did the media and the public spare no effort to shift as much of

the blame as possible on to the shoulders of the state? Smouldering anger The answer is that the rape acted as the trigger for an older, and deeper, anger in people one that has been smouldering for years in their hearts. This stems from a profound sense of betrayal. Democracy was meant to empower them. Instead, in a way that few of them understand even today, it has done the exact opposite. Empowerment requires the rule of law. People feel empowered only when they know that they have rights, and that the institutions of government exist, first and

foremost, to enforce them. The rule of law is, however, only another name for justice. Empowerment therefore requires justice. The bedrock from which the anger that erupted on December 17 sprang is the denial of justice. In spite of being a democracy for 65 years, the Indian state has not been able to create something that people value even more than material benefits: a just society. It has achieved this unique feat by making both its elected legislators and its bureaucracy, not to mention its lower judiciary, immune to accountability. It has therefore become a predatory state that the people have learned to fear.

The hallmark of the predatory state is the universality of extortion. In India, we regularly lump extortion together with bribery under the generic title of corruption. In doing so, even the most ardent of reformers inadvertently conspire with the predators to hide the true, ugly, face of our democracy. Bribery and extortion are, in fact, two entirely different forms of predatory behaviour, and have markedly different effects upon the relationship of state with society. Bribery is voluntary. The bribe giver chooses to give money or favours to influence a choice, steal a march over rivals, or hasten (sometimes delay) a decision.

Bribery harms the economy and society cumulatively over a period of time by preventing optimal choice, increasing cost and lowering the quality of the product or the service rendered. But it has limited political impact because it is a voluntary transaction between consenting adults and the injustice it does is confined to a small circle of rivals. Extortion is an entirely different form of predation. It requires no contract; no negotiation; and therefore no element of consent. It is a simple exercise of brute power by an employee or representative of the state over the citizen. Its commonest form is to deny the citizen the services to which he is entitled until he

agrees to make a private payment to the functionary in whom the power of the state is vested. Every act of extortion is a fresh reminder to the citizen of his or her impotence. This becomes complete if he or she is denied redress for the abuse of power. In India this has been all-butdenied not simply by law but by the Constitution itself. Article 311 of the Constitution reads: No person who is a member of a civil service of the Union or an all India service or a civil service of a State or holds a civil post under the Union or a State shall be dismissed or removed by an authority subordinate to that by which he was appointed. It makes it clear that this injunction applies to not

only civil but criminal cases as well. For the Central services, the empowered Authority is the President of India; for the State civil services, it is the Governor. This has meant that no prosecution can by initiated without the permission of the Central or State government. As the dismal experience of the Central Vigilance Commission has shown, in civil cases this permission is rarely given. Complaints against police One set of figures illustrates the impunity with which civil servants can break the law. According to the National Crime Records Bureaus annual report Crime in India 2007 , between 2003 and

2007 citizens filed 282, 384 complaints of human rights abuses against the police. Of these only 79,000 were investigated; only 1,070 policemen were brought to trial and only 264 less than one in a thousand were convicted. All but a handful stayed on at their posts, free to wreak vengeance on those who had dared to complain against them. It is therefore a safe bet that the actual number of such abuses is at least 10 times the number reported. It helps to explain why a girl who filed a complaint of rape with the police in Lucknow about two months ago was raped by the Station House Officer, then repeatedly by the investigating officer, but could not muster the courage to get the

latter caught, and report the former till she felt empowered by the protests in Delhi. The Constituent Assembly lifted Article 311 almost verbatim from a clause in the Government of India Act 1935 whose purpose was to protect British civil servants, notably the police, from incessant harassment by sharp-witted Congress lawyers. But the 1935 Act did not put the civil servant above the law. This was because he could be held accountable, as Edmund Burke had shown, by the British Parliament. In independent India, however, this restraint was destroyed by the progressive corruption, and criminalisation, of the political class that it now serves.

The root cause of both is the lack of any provision in the Constitution for the financing of elections. In Britain where the average constituency covers 380 square kilometres and has around 60,000 voters this is a nuisance. In India where the parliamentary constituency covers 6,000 sq km and holds 1.3 million voters it has proved a catastrophe. In the 1950s, the need for funds was met to a large extent by the rising industrial class and by the Princes. But when these two began to desert the Congress in favour of the Swatantra Party and the Jana Sangh in the 1960s, Indira Gandhi banned company donations to political parties and

abolished the privy purses. After that the only way in which political parties could stay in the game was to break the law. Over the ensuing decades, two sets of predatory networks have developed to finance, or otherwise influence, elections. The first is of criminals who provide the muscle to intimidate voters; the second is of local money-bags and power-brokers who rally support for candidates belonging to one or the other party in exchange for favours when it comes to power. As these have become more entrenched, they have virtually eliminated intra-party democracy at the grass roots and

progressively reduced the number of constituencies in which State and Central party leaders can bring in fresh candidates chosen on the basis of merit. In the current Parliament, for instance, at the last count 159 MPs had criminal charges pending against them. Another 156 are second generation princelings whose parents established the clientelist networks that now serve them. The State Assemblies are even more closed to new aspirants: 44 per cent of the MLAs in Bihar, 35 per cent in West Bengal and 30 per cent in Gujarat face criminal charges. The proportion of pocket boroughs is also higher in the States than at the Centre. Predatory state

The perennial need for money lies at the roots of the predatory state that India has become. Today, its ruling class consists of corrupt politicians who are served by an extortionate bureaucracy and police that are shielded from public wrath by nothing less than the Constitution of India. In earlier decades, peoples anger was held in check by their faith in the democratic system. They therefore gave vent to their demand for accountability in the state by turning out to vote in ever larger numbers and regularly overthrowing incumbent governments. Only in recent years has it begun to dawn on them that democracy has become a part of

the problem and cannot therefore be part of the solution. The protest is therefore moving closer to the borders of revolt. This has been apparent in the Maoist uprising that began in 2005, and has driven the state out of large parts of 83 districts in the country. The Anna movement last year was another turning point because it was the first time that the urban middle class took to the streets. Decembers mass protests in Delhi were the second time. History teaches us that this is the point at which the state usually begins to crumble. Were this to happen in India, it would not lead to the emergence of a more just and accountable Indian state but to its disintegration.

There is still time for our Central and State leaders to remember that no society that has lost its sense of justice, and, therefore, its moral legitimacy, has survived for long. But they are beginning to run out of it. (The writer is a senior journalist)

People are beginning to believe that democracy, in which they had faith all these years, is part of the problem and, therefore, cannot be part of the solution January 15, 2013 Aid to developing countries can work

Flight Tickets 1+1 Free - Book a Flight with MakeMyTrip and Get the next Ticket Absolutely Free Makemytrip.com/Buy1Get1Free LARRY ELLIOTT

BROUGHT TO THE TABLE:Both sides of the aid debate would agree on the need to tackle waste and corruption. (Left to right) The first working session of the G8 Summit at Camp David in 2012 and a food relief programme in Africa. PHOTOS: AP, AFP A lot of water has passed under the bridge since Britain hosted the G8 summit at Gleneagles in Scotland in July 2005. Life was sweet when the leaders of the

worlds most powerful western economies pledged themselves to debt relief and aid to help poor countries. Growth was strong, asset prices were rising, and the financial crisis was two years away. In 2013 it will, once again, be Britains turn to chair the G8, but the mood will be quite different when leaders meet at Lough Erne in Northern Ireland this summer. The talk will be of fiscal cliffs, the Euros struggle for survival, high energy prices and the struggle to ensure financial solvency. One thing is certain: there will be no repeat of the commitment to double aid within five years. Money is tight.

Back in 2005, the pressure on Tony Blair came from only one source: the Make Poverty History (MPH) coalition that saw Gleneagles as an opportunity to cajole the G8 into making binding pledges on development. David Cameron has a more difficult task this year for in addition to the lobbying by MPH2, he is coming under fire from aid sceptics who challenge the logic of a government that is cutting public spending at home and massively increasing public spending abroad. Anti-aid lobby The thrust of the argument from the anti-aid lobby is as follows: aid does not work because it traps countries in a culture of

dependency. Much of it is either wasted or siphoned off by corrupt regimes, so the taxes of poor people in rich countries ends up bankrolling the lavish lifestyles of rich people in poor countries. In Britain, lobbying by powerful and arrogant charities has led to an increase in the aid budget so big that the Department for International Development (DfID) does not know what to do with its embarrassment of riches. Aid has become a gigantic racket and should be pared back to genuine humanitarian relief. That will leave space for the private sector to power development, the only sure way for countries to escape poverty.

The anti-aid lobby is livid that Cameron, the Finance Minister, George Osborne, and the Development Minister, Justine Greening, are making good on the promise made by the last Labour government to raise the aid budget to 0.7 per cent of national income in 2013. Given the precarious state of the United Kingdoms public finances, the assumption was that the Prime Minister and his cabinet colleagues would eventually renege on the pledge. They deserve credit for not doing so. Heres why. Firstly, the anti-aid brigade mounts what is largely a straw man argument. Nobody at DfID, Oxfam, the World Bank or any other body involved in

development would ever say that aid alone is the answer to tackling poverty. It has always been seen as part of the solution, along with the right macroeconomic policies, private sector investment, boosting trade and, in Africa, encouraging regional integration. Secondly, both sides of the aid debate would agree on the need to tackle waste and corruption. Conservative ministers here have been acutely aware of the need to maintain public support for a rising aid budget during a period of austerity, which was why Greenings predecessor, Andrew Mitchell, undertook reviews of bilateral and multilateral spending and insisted on better value for money.

Whereas Labour favoured general budget support for poor countries giving governments more control over their own spending the coalition has preferred to finance specific projects. Greening has insisted that a minister must sign off spending on any development project costing more than 5m rather than the previous limit of 40m. She has announced the end of U.K. aid to India; stopped money for Rwanda amid evidence that it has been used to finance rebel forces in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; and has suspended all direct aid to Uganda after reports of misuse. This would appear to be the zerotolerance approach the aid

sceptics are urging. Certainly, it is hardly consistent with the lurid stories of DfID sitting idly by while taxpayers money is being siphoned off into numerous Swiss bank accounts. However, corruption is not going to be tackled simply by turning off the flow of official western assistance. It will also require action against tax havens, against the arms trade and against multinational companies guilty of bribery. The aid sceptics tend to be far less vociferous about these issues. Examples of success Thirdly, there is plenty of evidence to show aid is working. The charity

One has compiled a list of 14 African countries including Ethiopia, Tanzania, Malawi and Senegal that shared characteristics in the period after 2000: they qualified for debt relief; they werent dependent on extractive industries; they were not embroiled in civil conflict. On average, in these countries aid flows increased threefold between 2000 and 2010, but there was no sign that official assistance crowded out private investment. Far from it, foreign direct investment increased fourfold over the same period. Growth averaged 5.5 per cent between 2000 and 2011, an impressive

performance given the meltdown in the global economy that followed the financial crisis of 2007. In 2002, there were 300,000 people receiving HIV/Aids medicine; today the number exceeds eight million. As a result of international aid efforts, the number of Africans with access to a bed net has increased from three per cent to 50 per cent in a decade. Spending on vaccines, bed nets and nutrition has meant child mortality in sub-Saharan countries has dropped by 41 per cent. Education is seen rightly as the key to competing in the global economy, and over the past decade 51 million more children are in primary school because of

the resources provided by debt relief and aid. DfID funds a scheme in Sierra Leone called Making it Happen, where skilled health workers from Britain share their expertise with doctors, nurses and midwives in an attempt to reduce high levels of infant and child mortality. Far from creating a dependency culture, this is an example of smart aid: the provision of know-how and best practice that will help Sierra Leone help itself. There are similar U.K. government initiatives to sponsor technology transfer and to boost private sector investment in infrastructure.

All these seem worthy uses for the 70p in every 100 of national income the government allocates to help countries far less fortunate than our own. It is certainly strange that the government is making life more difficult for poor people in the U.K. at the same time it is trying to improve the lot of even poorer people in the rest of the world. The disparity between welfare policy at home and welfare policy abroad has certainly made the attacks of the anti-aid lobby more politically potent. But it is not coalition policy towards countries facing what Jamie Drummond, co-founder of One, calls the three extremes

extreme poverty, extreme climate change and extremist ideology that is incomprehensible. It is the rest of it. January 16, 2013 Green Books, red herring and the LoC war Free GRE Practice Test - Online Test Series For GRE Exam. 5000+ Practice Question. Join Now ! Shiksha.com/GRE-Practice-Test PRAVEEN SWAMI

FOCUS:India must become aware that a more muscular response to Pakistani aggression on the LoC will come with a price that probably isnt worth paying. The picture is of commanders of the Indian and Pakistani Armies at a

flag meeting in Poonch recently. PHOTO: PTI Late one night in the summer of 2009, four improvised 107millimetre rockets arced over the Pul Kanjari border outpost in Punjab, and exploded in the fields outside the village of Attari. For the first time since the war of 1971, there was an attack across the India-Pakistan border. In September that year, four more rockets were fired; then, in January 2010, there was a third assault. Now, as Indian and Pakistani troops trade fire along the Line of Control (LoC), it is more important than ever to understand the significance of those events. The rocket attacks, believed to have

been carried out by the Tehreeke-Taliban Pakistan, represented a glimpse into a grim future that Indias policy of strategic restraint has been designed to avert a war of attrition waged by jihadists that would turn Indias western frontiers into a kind of nuclearfuelled Lebanon. Ever since January 2008, two months after General Pervez Ashfaq Kayani took over as chief of the Pakistan Army, clashes along the LoC have escalated. India reported 28 ceasefire violations in 2009, 44 in 2010, 60 in 2011, and 117 last year. The traditional explanation that these clashes are linked to terrorist infiltration across the LoC borne out by the data: during

this period, Jammu and Kashmir has become significantly less violent, not more. New doctrine Pakistans military literature provides some insight into what is going on. The countrys generals, it shows, hope heightened tensions with India will help rebuild their legitimacy, extricate themselves from a domestic insurgency they are losing, and push jihadist groups now ranged against the Pakistani state to turn their energies eastwards. India, driven by a barrage of illconceived war polemic, is pushing itself into this trap.

Earlier this month, reports emerged that Pakistan had amended its doctrinal manual, called the Green Book , to include a chapter identifying internal insurgent forces as the countrys principal national security threat. No one, though, has quoted as much as a single line from the Green Book in question one of several reasons to suspect it might just be a red herring. Pakistani Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf, in a January 4 address at the National Defence University, called on the armed forces to redesign and redefine our military doctrine to fight terrorism. It seems reasonable to infer that, on that date, he at least was unaware of a new doctrine.

C. Christine Fair, a Georgetown University scholar who is the preeminent authority on the Pakistan Armys internal doctrinal literature and the first to bring the Green Book series to light is in little doubt that is the case. This talk of a new doctrine is rubbish, says Dr. Fair, I think a lot of people who really ought know better have let themselves be talked into buying snake-oil. The Green Book isnt, in fact, a doctrinal testament or even, in fact, one book. For the last two decades, as first reported in The Hindu in 2011, the Pakistan Armys general headquarters has published collections of essays by senior officers, with the name assigned to the series. The 2010

Green Book , on information warfare, only became available last year; the next in the biennial series only became available in 2011. Suspicions of India From the very first essay in the current Green Book , it becomes clear the Pakistani officer corps maniacal suspiciousness of India hasnt stilled. Brigadier Umar Farooq Durranis Treatise on Indian-backed Psychological Warfare Against Pakistan, asserts that the Research and Analysis Wing funds many Indian newspapers and even television channels, such as Zee Television, which is considered to be its media headquarters to wage

psychological war. The creation of *the+ South Asian Free Media Association a few years back, Brigadier Farooq claims, was a step in the same direction. Even the eminent scholar Ayesha Siddiqas work, he insists, is a classical example of psychological war against Pakistan. The most subtle form of this psychological war, the Brigadier states, is found in movies where Muslim and Hindu friendship is screened within * sic. + the backdrop of melodrama. Indian soaps and movies are readily welcomed in most households in Pakistan. The effects desired to be achieved through this is to undermine the Two National Theory *as+ being a person

obsession of *Muhammad Ali+ Jinnah. Had the Green Books not been official publications, none of this ought to have been a cause of worry. There is, after all, no shortage of delusional paranoiacs on the eastern side of the IndiaPakistan border either, in and outside the armed forces. From the Pakistan Army chief himself, though, we know ideas like those of Brigadier Durrani are considered worthy of serious consideration. In his foreword to the 2010 edition, General Kayani asserts that the essays provide an effective forum for the leadership to reflect on, identity and define the challenges faced by the

Pakistan army, and share possible ways of overcoming them. The eastern enemy Language of the kind that runs through the 2010 Green Book pervades earlier editions too. In 2002, as Pakistan faced up to the looming war between its armed forces and their one-time jihadist allies, the Green Book focussed on low-intensity warfare. Brigadier Shahid Hashmat, typically, argued that the threat of low-intensity conflicts should be considered as the most serious matter at *the+ national level. Thus, he went on, all national agencies and resources must be directed concurrently for launching an

effective and robust response against this threat. The blame for the crisis imposed on Pakistan by religious sectarian groups and jihadists, though, is firmly placed on India. LieutenantColonel Inayatullah Nadeem Butt, using ideas near-identical to those in the current Green Book , asserted that India has been aggressively involved in subverting the minds of youth through planned propaganda and luring them towards subversive activities. Even as they considered how to fight religious sectarian groups and revolutionary jihadists, the officers who contributed to the 2002 Green Book thus focussed on

imposing punitive costs on India. Brigadier Muhammad Zia, for example, noted that India is highly volatile on its internal front due to numerous vulnerabilities which, if agitated, accordingly could yield results out of proportion to the efforts put in. In similar vein, Major Ijaz Ahmad advocated that *the+ InterServices Intelligence should launch low profile operations in Indianheld Kashmir and should not allow the freedom movement to die down. Linguistic, social, religious and communal diversities in India, the officer continued, should be exploited carefully and imaginatively. Put another way, even as they considered tactics to defeat

insurgents in Pakistan, the officer corps also discussed sponsoring insurgencies in India, to tie down their arch-adversary. General Pervez Musharraf described the 2002 Green Book , as a valuable document for posterity; he was right. Tough challenge Like all forms of madness, the texts in the Green Book arent without method: crisis with India is, after all, a precondition for ensuring the Pakistan Armys preeminent position in the countrys power structure. 26/11, it is surprisingly little remarked upon, almost did pay off for Pakistans Army. Less than a week after the attack, a senior Army

commander was reported as calling the jihadist chief Baitullah Mehsud a patriot. The officer said the armys war with the Taliban leaders like Mehsud was merely the result of minor misunderstandings. There is plenty of evidence that jihadists in Pakistan are growing more powerful and that organisations like the Tehreek-eTaliban are seriously considering expanding their operations eastwards. The practical struggle for a sharia system that we are carrying out in Pakistan, its deputy chief Maulana Wali-urRahman said in a recentlyreleased video, the same way we will continue it in Kashmir, and the

same way we will implement the sharia system in India. It is self-evident that preventing a rapprochement between jihadists and the generals is in Indias best interest one reason why Prime Ministers Atal Behari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh proved willing to pay the political price for a policy of strategic restraint. That the will to continue doing so is fraying in the build-up to the General Election is evident. India has, so far, punished Pakistani aggression with a variety of means, conventional and covert but the seduction of grandiose gestures is growing. Indians must become aware, though, that a more muscular response to Pakistani aggression on the LoC,

like all instant gratification, will come with a price that probably isnt worth paying. January 16, 2013 The Congress kumbh mela congress organisation Competente and free of charge MICE service - all from one source www.flf-meetings.ch/MICEservice HARISH KHARE

Jawaharlal Nehru took over as Congress president a few months before the first General Elections and led the Grand Old Party to a comprehensive victory, as the world watched in fascination a backward countrys revolutionary flirtation with universal adult franchise.

Soon after the votes got counted, Jayaprakash Narayan noted rather bitterly that the Congress successes in certain States are mainly due to Mr. Nehrus promise that he would clean up the organisation after the elections. I know from personal experience that a large number of people in the country were carried away by that promise. The time has come for Mr. Nehrus to fulfil this promise. The unstated lament was that Jawaharlal Nehru had hoodwinked the electorate into voting for the Congress. And, for good measure, JP noted, rather presciently, that neither Mr. Nehru nor anyone else can clean up this organisation. The Congressman-turned-socialist

leaders prognosis was to prove right. Nehrus benevolent presence Apart from periodically lamenting unhealthy tendencies in the party over which he presided, and, often admonishing fellowCongressmen for bad behaviour, Nehru did precious little to set the Congress house in order. Arguably he just did not have the requisite ruthlessness to purge the party of its impurities. He was too much of a liberal and too much of a gentleman to undertake the necessarily unpleasant task of cleansing a so settled an organisation as the Congress. Instead, the operative principle became that Nehrus own

overwhelmingly benevolent presence and wholesome leadership were more than enough to provide the corrective to whatever badness the party could cook up. Nehru was comfortable with this proposition and others were conceitedly comfortable in making Nehru feel comfortable in this self-delusion. Contrary to JPs 1953 prophesy that the disintegration of the Congress will become an accomplished fact in the next few years, the party in fact settled itself down to consolidating its political domination. It was better than anyone else in political power games; but it was obvious the party of the freedom movement had acquired an

organisational personality that not only was decidedly at odds with Nehrus own ethical standards but also prevented it from becoming a decisive transformative instrumentality of the Indian state. Soon New Delhi-based envoys were mentioning the partys corruption and inefficiency in their dispatches back home. Nehrus socialist agenda was filibustered. And, though Nehru could and did manufacture coherent national objectives and goals, the bureaucracy and the public sector and, not the Congress party became the preferred instruments of transformation. The only contribution the Congress could make was to deepen the Indian states representative legitimacy.

Once Nehru left the scene and the Indian state began its long muddle through a Hindu rate of growth, the Congresss sterile stability increasingly proved a positive distraction. Sooner or later, things had to come to a head and, did, rather dramatically in 1969. The Congress got split right down the middle. That split was premised on the understanding that there were too many reactionary, backward looking people in the Congress who were preventing the fulfilment of the nations historic role. People voted decisively for Indira Gandhis Congress because it was marketed as a new, sharper instrument of transformation. However, once it became clear that Indira Gandhi

was batting on a winning wicket, the same less than attractive crowd of Congressmen moved over to her side. Soon after the 1971 massive mandate, everyone bought into a working proposition that Indira Gandhis very presence and leadership would neutralise the baddies. She was too distracted with the absorbing and exacting affairs of state; there is only so much a prime minister can pile on her/his plate. Like her father, Indira Gandhi too could not undertake any comprehensive house-cleaning. The promise of purge never materialised. Instead, the party became a dung-heap of defectors. The inevitable

denouement was the rise of Sanjay Gandhi and the Emergency. Rajiv, symbol of change When the baton got passed to Rajiv Gandhi, he symbolised change. He himself brilliantly dissected the ills of his own party at its 1985 centenary session, he too failed to make any headway in instilling any sense of direction, discipline and destiny in the organisation. Then in 1998 the baton eventually passed on to Sonia Gandhi. To her credit, she never promised to clean up the party. All she promised was she would try to keep the warring Congressmen from getting at each others throat

and to maintain some unity of purpose; and, as it turned out, she shepherded the party to a decade of uninterrupted rule at the Centre. And, that success, in turn, has produced its own consequences. Unfortunately, there is only one yardstick for a partys success winning elections. But the quest for electoral majority is not to be sniggered at easily. Only those in power can make authoritative public choices. Thanks to the UPA policies and practices and absurdities the polity has witnessed the rise of new forces, full of passions and provocations. So much so, we are supposed to be on the cusp of a new politics.

And that is the context of the Jaipur congregation. It would, however, be instructive for the Congressmen to keep in mind that since JPs days, one school of thought has always held that the Congress is the problem. But neither has the Congress disappeared nor have the nonCongress political forces and formations managed to keep it out for long from positions of power and authority. This history puts the Congressmen under a new obligation. The Jaipur Kumbh Mela will be useful only if the Congressmen understand that they have the primary responsibility to respond to the new political economy of upmarket assertiveness and downmarket deprivations.

This cannot be an easy undertaking in this age of coalitions and fractured polity. The Congress and, for that matter, any other party or a combination of parties that may come to have the opportunity in the near future to govern from New Delhi, will confront a conundrum: how to convert a technical mandate into an enlightened democratic authority? The task of the leadership, then, becomes adding value to that technical mandate by its competence, capacity and communications so as to secure the citizens joyful consent to its policies and politics. It is possible that at Jaipur, the Congressmen could get down to

discussing the nature and reason for new restlessness among important sections of society. It is also possible that the younger lot among the Congressmen will decide to familiarise themselves with new tools of new technology that are being used to create confusion, controversy and crises. That may not be enough. Trapped as the party is in the Rahul Gandhi leadership syndrome, it still needs to craft a new profile for itself around the limits of his political persona; in other words, it has to undertake to try to answer the all too obvious craving among vast sections of our society for a cleaner, more decent, more open political process.

Restore respectability At stake is not just the future of the Congress or the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty. The very usefulness of democratic politics has come into disrepute. As the oldest political formation in the country, it is for the Congress to restore our constitutional orders moral respectability. Citizens need to see demonstratively for themselves that public choices are made for the larger good. While a semblance of order and control is the prerequisite for any civilised, democratic state order, it is nonetheless imperative that the Congress learns new songs, lyrics and music so as to communicate that the only rationale for

democratic polity to exist is to make the citizens feel and believe that politics is for them, not against them. The Congressmen are good at tactical cleverness. It remains to be seen whether at Jaipur they will be able or be allowed to discover the path of wisdom. (Harish Khare is a veteran commentator and political analyst. He was the Prime Ministers media adviser from June 2009 to January 2012)

When the Grand Old Partys leaders congregate at Jaipur, they will do well to remember their historic responsibility to adapt to changing aspirations

January 16, 2013 The cleric and the cricketer Flight Tickets 1+1 Free - Book a Flight with MakeMyTrip and Get the next Ticket Absolutely Free Makemytrip.com/Buy1Get1Free RAFIA ZAKARIA

APPEARANCES:Tahir-ul-Qadri seems to have evaded all the usual categories that have exhausted and enraged Pakistanis. (Left to right) Imran Khan at a rally in Mianwali, north Pakistan, and supporters of Tahir-ul-Qadri at a meeting in Lahore. PHOTOS: AFP Whether or not the neatly bearded cleric commanding the

crowds in Islamabad will succeed in toppling the flailing Zardari government may not be known, but he has undoubtedly been blessed by the benevolence of good timing. The week before Allama Tahir-ul-Qadri began to gather his supporters for the march on Islamabad was bloody even by Pakistans recent death smeared standards. On January 10, 2013, the Wednesday before the march, two bomb blasts ripped through the embattled city of Quetta killing over a hundred of the citys beleaguered Shia Hazara minority. North of Islamabad, in the town of Swabi, another bomb blew up a seminary killing another 20. In the south in Karachi, in the shadow of a 2012 that saw over 2,000 killed in targeted attacks of

varied origin, a single hour of the same day saw 11 shot dead outside a homeopathic hospital. Two days in Pakistan and over 200 killed. And those were the extraordinary troubles, the ravages that came atop the fuel strikes in Karachi that routinely paralyse millions of commuters, the natural gas shortages in Punjab that prevent hordes from cooking their evening meals, the measles epidemic sucking life out of hundreds of children in Sindh and scores of health workers felled by the Taliban. Scepticism to blame Against this grim backdrop of failure; arrived an Allama from Canada, the leader of a group

named Minhaj ul Quran; known not for its politics but long advocated moral and spiritual reform. It is not that Pakistan has not ridden the heady waves of fiery reformers before. Most would remember the rousing rallies in which Pakistan Tehreeke-Insaaf leader cricketer Imran Khan drew thousands and, by some ebullient estimates, even hundreds of thousands to his ranks. His too was a promising cross-sectional mix; fervent Pakistani youth, bearded and clean shaven, headscarved and not, rich and not so rich all united under the umbrella of change. The dimensions for the cricketer of yore were similar to the cleric of now; a new figure willing to take on the feudals who have clutched

onto power for too long; able to whet with sportycharm the nationalist passions of a politician wary Pakistani public. Imran Khan spoke of accountability and avarice and grabbing the collars of all the fattened bureaucrats and lethargic leaders; the men who didnt pay taxes and turned their backs on the poor and cared little for the tears of the unconnected and the ordinary. But if the ache for change was on the side of the charismatic cricketer; timing may not have been, and the space between the engagement and the wedding proved too long, as the months to the promised elections of 2013 crept by ever so slowly, the slow poison of scepticism began to settle into the cracks in the promised upheaval and wedge

themselves into crevices. Was he accepting too many feudals into his ranks, wasnt his house just as big as those of other leaders, and wasnt his ex-wife British? None of it was damning, but together it dampened the flames of a firedriven machinery just enough. Allama Tahir-ul-Qadri then could well be called Imran Khan with better timing, a beard and a more religiously appealing resume. To the Pakistani public, all of it makes him absolutely irresistible, a harbinger of change at a time when any change at all seems better than the crushing punishing status quo. Like the protesters in other parts of the Muslim world; Tahir-ul-Qadris supporters seem to have no decided agenda; asking

at once for the dismissal of a duly elected government and a return to constitutionalism and the rule of law. The microphones at the Qadri march blared at one moment thumping patriotic music and at another the calls to prayer. The mix would be confusing if it wasnt so particularly Pakistani with his amalgamation of faith and moderation, his repeated avowal of spiritual and moral reform and his insistence on peaceful protest; Tahir-ul-Qadri seems to have evaded all the usual categories that have exhausted and enraged Pakistanis. He is neither the violent Islamist nor the fattened feudal, not the ethnic commander nor the tattling technocrat and in being nothing, he seems to have come

dangerously close to becoming the something many Pakistanis would like to follow. The danger of course lies in the very ambiguity Allama Tahir-ulQadri has been able to harness. Most troubling among these is the fact that unlike Imran Khan and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf, he has decided to operate outside the party system, never attempting to create a political party but harnessing the reformist power of a faith-based reform movement to gather thousands in the streets. To the most pessimistic, watching a bearded man, who speaks of constitutionalism but not of contesting democratic elections; of getting rid of a government

without enumerating the basis of selection of the next, who gives few details of what would happen after the corrupt and inept leaders of now are finally dragged out of office, seems a dangerous mix away from Pakistans always delicate democracy. If they are correct, the appearance of Allama Tahir-ul-Qadri may seem the first visible symptom of a long secret ailment ravaging Pakistan; the Pakistani publics decades long move away from feudal and technocrat dominated politics and decrepit institutions to the faithbased reform movements that have no faith in the party system. Or it could be the usual Pakistani disease; a new front for a military always waiting in the shadows, always impatient with political

transitions and able perhaps to create just the right man to fit just the morose mood. To the supporters of Tahir-ul-Qadri huddled in borrowed blankets and threadbare sweaters, in the settling fog of a cold Islamabad night, the details of such dynamics may not matter at all, their chilled and weary focus remaining instead simply on change, in any form and at any cost and under the leadership of any man. January 17, 2013 He died a broken man TUI Honeymoon Package - Get the best holiday package to northeast. Hurry book today! www.tui.in/northeast JYOTI PUNWANI

Maulana Hussain UmarjiPHOTO: PTI Maulana Hussain Umarji died of brain haemorrhage on Sunday night, a free man but a tarnished one. As his son Saeed said, His mind could never free itself of the stain on his reputation. Even after he was acquitted, the media kept asking: how did the mastermind go free? Few outside Godhra knew of Maulana Umarji till Coach S-6 of the Sabarmati Express was burnt there on February 27, 2002, leading to the gruesome death of 59 passengers, most of them Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) followers. The subsequent violence against Muslims in

Gujarat saw thousands of injured, raped, orphaned and widowed Muslims pour into Godhra from neighbouring villages, necessitating the setting up of relief camps for them. Maulana Umarji, the head of the towns Ghanchi community, ran the three camps, and thereby entered the limelight, finally leading to his arrest as the mastermind of the train burning, a year after the incident. As Saeed Umarji said, If this is the reward you get for doing social work, God save this country. Acquittals It wasnt just social work that Saeeds father did in those violent

months of 2002. Running the camps without much help was difficult enough. But that could have been done by others equally efficiently. Maulana Umarji did what no one else could. He kept his flock in check. Notorious for their impulsive violent reactions to any slight to their faith (it was outside their settlement near Godhra station that the Sabarmati coach was set on fire), Godhras Ghanchi Muslims couldnt contain themselves as they heard tales of atrocities from the villagers who poured into their relief camps, punished for something with which they had had no connection. (Incidentally, Narendra Modi is a Ghanchi.) Additionally, in those days, night curfew was on, and the police

were conducting nightly raids on Ghanchi localities, hunting for those who burnt the train, picking up anyone they could. (As many as 63 of the 94 accused were acquitted.) In this explosive atmosphere, Maulana Umarji succeeded in preventing a major flare-up between the police and his flock. But that was not his only achievement. The Maulana was the first to apologise on behalf of his community for the burning of the Sabarmati coach. He did this at the first peace meeting called by Godhras Collector, and then at subsequent meetings. He apologised too in front of then Prime Minister

Vajpayee and Sonia Gandhi, when they came to see the burnt coach. These apologies went unreported, as did his condemnation of the incident and his appeal for peace sent to newspapers. This was the man arrested as the mastermind of the train burning, on the basis of a statement made by a criminal in custody who retracted it the moment he was produced before a magistrate. Everyone in Polan Bazar, Godhras main Muslim area, saw the police take away their 63-year-old spiritual leader just before dawn from his house, hobbling without spectacles or walking stick. The next day, the media went berserk with lurid tales of contacts with Pakistan and

Afghanistans Mullah Umar, fiery sermons, hidden wealth all these accompanied by close-ups of the Maulanas face contorted in anger, fitting exactly the stereotype of the jehadi antinational Mullah. Such was the impact of this coverage that when he was acquitted eight years later, Hindus across Gujarat cursed the police and the judge for letting the mastermind off. No support For the Maulana, there couldnt have been a worse charge. As he told this reporter in April 2002, Muslims have been taught to be patient, so all this (violence) we are facing today, we shall suffer it. But what makes me angry is when

they question our patriotism. Dont they know that 14,000 ulema had been hung from the trees of Delhi for fighting for freedom? My own guru was in jail in Malta for six years. The British promised him freedom if he only gave up Gandhiji. He refused. I fear the country is not safe in their hands. It will be ruined. The tragedy was that when he was arrested by the BJP government, not even the Congress for whom he had campaigned in the December 2002 Assembly elections, spoke up in his defence. This campaign was one of the reasons for his arrest. The other was that with his outspoken denunciation of the treatment of Muslims to the Prime Minister,

and his open help to the families of those arrested from Godhra, he had become the defiant face of Gujarats Muslims at a time when the entire community was cowed down. Maulana Umarji never got bail, even after the charges of terrorism were removed in 2009. While he languished in jail, six of his children were married off. In February 2011, as his community thronged his house after he finally came home having been acquitted, his first question to this reporter was to inquire about her health, and narrate how jail had actually done him good thanks to Ramdevs yoga classes there.

Apparently, not enough good to counter the stigma Modis government and the media had put him through. Even though a fiercely protective son prevented him from donning his communitys leadership again, he lasted barely two years after his release. (Jyoti Punwani is a Mumbai-based journalist and writer.) January 17, 2013 Beware the dogs of war Electricity Bill Payment - Pay Electricity Bills Easily Online Avoid Long Queues. Sign Up Now! Myuniverse.co.in/Electricity_Bills NIRUPAMA SUBRAMANIAN

The killing of two soldiers on the Line of Control, and the gruesome manner in which Lance Naik Hemraj met his end, have shocked and anguished all Indians. But in all that has been said by political leaders and by the men in uniform, there is a strange omission. Not one of them has yet thought it important to stress that despite the violations, how vital the ceasefire has been to changing lives on the ground for people living on both sides of the LoC the Kashmiris that both India and Pakistan claim to speak for, and whose best interests both nations claim to represent and what a crucial anchor it has been for peace efforts in the region over the last decade and therefore how important it is to secure it.

10 for one Instead, on the Indian side, there has been talk about the need to get 10 heads for one; about India having other options; about how the Indian Army will not remain passive to provocations. But what is truly sad is that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who has been a determined votary of better ties with Pakistan, and once spoke about breakfast in Lahore and lunch in Kabul has now started competing with BJP leader Sushma Swaraj in playing to the gallery. His statement that it cannot be business as usual with Pakistan is word for word a throwback to the Mumbai attack.

But it is also useful to recall that after those famous last words in 2008, the two countries came back to the table as realisation dawned on India that talks it had to be. Back at the table, both sides set up a framework with much difficulty, and even managed some forward movement. It seems no lessons have been learnt from that experience. Reminiscent of the Mumbai aftermath, on the Indian side, sporting contacts, and the visa-on-arrival-scheme have been the immediate casualties. On the Pakistani side, the politicians and the military have been too preoccupied with the bombings in Quetta, Karachi and Swabi, protests and Tahir-ul Qadri.

But they threw the U.N. card at India and also suspended two main confidence building measures on the ceasefire the cross-LoC bus service and crossLoC trade, directly hurting the Kashmiris. Ask the people of Kirini, a village on the LoC in Poonch, what they make of this sudden downturn in their fortunes. It was only two years ago that the Indian Army tentatively allowed residents of this village to return to homes and lands they were forced to leave eight years earlier. They were not just in the cross-fire; security forces also suspected that the village, divided in 1947, was being used as a haven by infiltrators from across the border.

Cluster colony of villagers When a group from Centre for Dialogue and Reconciliation, a think-tank that works on IndiaPakistan issues, visited them in 2007 at the cluster colony to which they had been relocated, Kirni villagers told them that they trekked everyday to their village to work on their lands. It took them about one-and-a-half to two hours. The barbed wire fence, which came up on the LoC in 2004-05 further divided the village, leaving most of the houses and the land ahead of the fencing. Villagers were let in through a gate in the fence that opened once at 9 am and, again at 4 pm, by which time, people had to wind

up their days chores and leave. The women would cook in their homes at Kirni during the day, and carry the night meal back, over slippery pathways, to their oneroom tenement in the cluster colony. Everyone had to be back in the colony before dark. In April-May 2011, in view of the ceasefire holding well, the Indian Army allowed Kirnis residents to return to their village. Kirni was the pilot of a model rehabilitation plan. If it went well, and there were no incidents, 20,000 people of other villages along the LoC would be rehabilitated too; most of them were. If India and Pakistan do not stop the tough talk and the shelling, its

back to the future for these people, and by extension for everyone else in J&K. In Uri sector in Baramulla, people in villages close to the LoC are demanding that the government either construct bunkers for them or give them money to do it themselves. The bunkers that the villages used to have apparently collapsed during the 2005 earthquake, but as the ceasefire was going well, no one gave thought to reconstruct them. From South Asia Terrorism Portal, a website with an exhaustive list of security-related incidents in the sub-continent, here is a snapshot of what it could look like if bunkers really became urgent and necessary: in two months, from

September 26 to November 27, 2000, India counted 611 killed on the LoC. Of these, 119 were of military personnel, and 151 were civilians. The website classifies the remaining dead as terrorists. As many as 136 military personnel were injured; among civilians, the number of injured was higher 153. This was just from localised hostilities at the LoC, not an all out war. Compare this with post-ceasefire casualties: no incidents until 2006; in July 2009, Defence Ministry A.K. Antony told the Lok Sabha that 110 incidents had taken place along the ceasefire since it came into being in 2003; on the Indian side, four soldiers and two civilians had been killed.

Semblance of normality The CDR group that visited the LoC in 2007 heard in village after village that people were finally sleeping well, not in a metaphorical sense, but quite literally. That the ceasefire also helped Kashmiris on either side connect after more than five decades of Partition, through travel and trade, was the icing on the cake. All this gave Kashmiris a semblance of normality after more than five decades of living in a war zone. If the ceasefire, the biggest achievement of the IndiaPakistan dialogue of the last 15 years, is something that our politicians cannot summon up the

backbone to defend, they might as well stop talking about Kashmir. As the numbers show, both sides have violated the ceasefire on plenty of occasions, and there have been arguably bigger incidents. In July 2008, Shiv Shankar Menon, who was then the Foreign Secretary, told journalists right after meeting his Pakistani counterpart, that the ceasefire at the LoC was under strain. That year, there were 77 violations. Last year, there were 117. Despite a solid system to ensure that such violations are resolved immediately, it seems as if this time, there was a deliberate absence of will to use this

mechanism to its entire capacity. The meeting between the field commanders did not last even 15 minutes. Track Two dialogue At a recent edition of the Chaophraya Track Two dialogue it brings together specialists from various fields, some of them former government officials, for a candid exchange on India-Pakistan issues some Indian participants warned that if there was to be another terrorist attack on Indian soil with a Pakistani fingerprint, all bets would be off, and it was therefore in Pakistans interests to dismantle the terror infrastructure for the talks to go ahead who could have seen a month ago that

the danger would come from a ceasefire violation on the LoC. But most participants, Indians and Pakistanis, were emphatic that the two countries must insulate the gains of the dialogue process such as trade and visas from such incidents, or else there was no point in expending resources to make some progress, only to be dragged down, and then have to start all over again. Securing the ceasefire and the rest of the peace process is more important than at any other time. 2014 is not just the year of the next general election in India. It is also the year by the end of which the United States would have withdrawn most of its troops from Afghanistan. What happens there,

and the rest of the region after that will depend much on India and Pakistan, and the state of their bilateral relations. Despite its internal troubles, Pakistan has its eyes fixed on the Afghan ball, and is already involved in efforts for a political deal with the Taliban. Given the stability in IndiaPakistan relations over the last year or so, until last week, this would have been a good time for a frank discussion between the two countries on Afghanistan, and for New Delhi to highlight its own concerns, how it sees its own role in bringing regional stability. Instead, we are back to staring down each other, which can only bring more bad tidings in a post2014 situation. For the next government in New Delhi, there

can be far more pleasant ways to begin an innings. To borrow a term from the medical profession, we are in the middle of what doctors call the Golden Hour, the first hour after a road accident, in which there is a possibility of setting things right for the victim. Get it wrong now, and it can only get worse from here. [email protected]

If our politicians cannot defend the ceasefire, the biggest gain of the India-Pakistan dialogue, they should stop claiming they represent Kashmirs best interests January 17, 2013

Dont like this temple? Choose another Your Zodiac Horoscope - Insert Your Birthdate & Get Answers about Past-Present and Future. Free AboutAstro.com MADHU PURNIMA KISHWAR

DIVERSE BELIEFS:Devotees cannot be ordered around by those who only have contempt for them or be bullied into surrendering their unique Being. PHOTO: C.V. SUBRAHMANYAM

Do we want to create a world in which everyone thinks alike? A world in which there is no space for divergence of views or foolish

people? I write this after witnessing poor Rahul Easwar, one of the young hereditary priests of Sabarimala, being flagellated on television for the nth time on January 7, 2013, for allowing the presiding deity of his temple to shun the company of female devotees. The medias job is first and foremost to inform and not browbeat people to reform. TV news programmes in particular have come to resemble inquisitions or kangaroo courts with anchors and their handpicked panellists flagellating those with politically incorrect views, issuing diktats on everything from political views to religious

practices and rituals, and even the conduct of gods and goddesses. Intolerant Just as our colonial rulers with their faith in the superiority of their monotheistic faith, despised Hindu religious practices, with their millions of gods and goddesses, our modern day missionaries cant stand the temperamental nuances of our diverse deities. They have no problem in accepting that women are barred inside friaries meant to house Catholic priests who have taken a vow of celibacy. But they cant stomach the idea of a male deity who has likewise vowed eternal celibacy avoiding the company of women. They take it

upon themselves to cure this kink because in their moral universe with its borrowed vocabulary, this amounts to misogyny and gender discrimination! Rahul Easwar has asked each television anchor who has grilled him over the years how would they deal with all those temples which only allow female devotees, where the presiding goddess forbids mens entry. Would they likewise force women only temples to open their doors to men? Not one has ever condescended to answer this simple question; nor did any of the anchors tone down their aggression or hostility towards Rahuls intelligent defence of his faith and his Ishta dev .

Following in the footsteps of our British rulers, who despite their disdain for our gods and goddesses, took away shiploads of priceless ancient idols to display as art objects in their museums and living rooms, so also our westernised elites have taken to displaying paintings, bronze and stone carved idols of diverse gods and goddesses as decoration pieces in their homes as proof of their aesthetic lifestyle. But their disdain for those who treat them as objects of worship remains as ferocious as that of our colonial rulers. Respect for differences

If that were not the case, they would have no difficulty in appreciating that Hindu divinities are not unknowable, distant entities. They have distinct personalities, character traits, likes, dislikes. Even in matters of food, floral offerings, puja ritual, each deity has his or her preferences. If you dont respect their unique temperaments, you are free not to worship them and choose the devata or devi that suits your taste. Even the most illiberal among Indians do not insist on uniformity of rituals or modes of worship. They let each faith group, each sect decide for itself how to define their relationship to their chosen deity, what foods to offer her,

what modes of worship they think appropriate to express their devotion and how they interpret her likes or dislikes. This spontaneous, mutual respect for differences in ways of being, ways of worship, singing, dancing, clothing, cooking and so on, is what enabled the rich diversity of India to survive through millennia. But our self-proclaimed modern liberals cant deal with these lived forms of diversity. They can only relish in museumised versions such as folk dances on Republic Day or as consumer goods. For example, possessing a collection of Kanjeevaram, Ikat, Chanderi or Patola saris, Madhubani and Worli paintings, Moradabad brassware, wood carvings from Kashmir,

Tanjore paintings, Rajasthani miniatures, etc. is a fashion statement. But the moral universe of those who create these diverse art objects is unacceptable. It is assumed that they all need a dose of reform to cleanse them of antiquated beliefs and values. For engagement I wont be surprised if tomorrow someone decided to reform the food habits of our gods and goddesses saying, for example, that modak and laddoo are both high cholesterol, high calorie food items. They encourage devotees to have pot bellies. Therefore, they should be banned in favour of sugar-free diet chocolates!

It is time the imperious missionaries of liberalism understand that our temples are not meant to be tourist centres where entry must be free for all. Most of our traditional temples are run by specific sects for the devotees of that particular deity. If you dont like the values of that sect, if the preferences of that particular deity are offensive to you, just avoid going to that temple. There are lakhs of others to choose from. If I walked into the homes of our self-appointed reformers and insisted that they change their lifestyles and food habits, Id be shown the door and asked to mind my own business. What gives these non-believers the right

to dictate to Lord Sabarimala how he should live and act in his own abode or dictate terms to harmless little sects among Hindus who prefer to indulge in the whims and wishes of their chosen deities? Young Rahul Easwar has been pleading for respectful engagement with faith leaders in order to bring about changes in allegedly outmoded customary practices and cultural values. In the Hindu faiths, nothing is written in stone. Devotees have the right to dictate their deities to change with changing times. But they cant be ordered around by those who only have contempt for them. They cannot be bullied into surrendering their unique

Being and become colourless and soulless robotic creatures that yield to every new wave of political fashion we import from our intellectual mentors in distant lands. (Madhu Purnima Kishwar is founder, Manushi, and professor, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies.)

The imperious missionaries of liberalism have no respect for the diversity of Indias belief systems and have taken it upon themselves to reform everything they perceive as outdated and incorrect

January 18, 2013 Pushing Africa aside in Mali Women Leadership Program - For Women Leaders in Asia. 5 Days @NUS Business School. Apply! executive-education.nus.edu ARUN MOHAN SUKUMAR

DIRECT COMBAT:If anything, the intervention is likely to exacerbate regional conflict and strengthen the hand of extremists. The pictures are of a scene outside Bamako after the arrival of French troops and (right) a mission briefing. PHOTOS: AP French jets are zipping past northern Mali, bombing the region and with it, a participatory

framework that had thus far allowed African states to troubleshoot what is first and foremost a regional political crisis. Frances aerial assault and imminent deployment of ground troops is a volte face from its original plan to offer logistical aid to African peacekeepers in Mali. For all of French President Franois Hollandes promises to treat Africa as a partner and friend, his governments military intervention in the Sahel is proof that Franafrique is alive and well. Its monopoly over the rapid deployment of military force allows France to sustain a relationship of dependency with the continent, at a time when governments in North, West and

Central Africa are struggling to control armed rebels. In the last few months, the U.N. Security Council had placed Mali at the centre of its agenda, while co-opting the concerns and counsel of West African states along the way. Last year, the council adopted Resolutions 2056, 2071 and 2085 each facilitating progressively tough measures to tackle this conflict. The U.N.s efforts, which France has now upended, were aimed at bringing African stakeholders on board. In July 2012, the UNSC emphasised dialogue between various stakeholders in Mali, while acknowledging the sovereign authority of Malis interim government. The Economic

Community of West African States (Ecowas) mediated this dialogue, often interacting with fringe elements such as Ansar Dine, the Islamist group that has now coalesced with other Tuareg outfits in northern Mali. For a regional-led force Negotiating and sustaining an agreement is feasible only if there is a mechanism to enforce its terms. The Ecowas and the African Union (AU) had therefore requested the Security Councils blessings for an African-led stabilisation force in Mali. Where was Frances enthusiasm then to train or provide non-lethal support to this force? No one is suggesting African forces can

overrun the Tuareg militia after all, some in the latters ranks were trained by American troops but France could have facilitated the adoption of preventive measures early on in the crisiss timeline. No such support was forthcoming. In late 2012, the AU and Ecowas made repeated appeals to the council to help deploy the Africanled International Support Mission to Mali (AFISMA). In pursuit of their endeavour, African states drew up a Strategic Concept for the Resolution of the Crises in Mali as well a Concept of Operations that dealt with logistics, intelligence gathering, and even issues of internal displacement and humanitarian aid. The Security Council

considered this blueprint, along with the U.N. Secretary Generals ground report which highlighted the importance of a political settlement in Mali. As an important and responsible supraregional actor, France could have helped bridge differences among Ecowas members and provide financial assistance as well as training to AFISMA at this stage, as the UNSC urged members to do. Then, Defence Minister JeanYves Le Drian advertised a handsoff approach, specifically suggesting France would not be directly involved in the intervention. Now, he is contemplating a troop deployment that could reach 2,500 in number.

The result The military intervention in Mali is Frances desperate attempt to rejuvenate its waning clout in the Sahel, an area that Paris considers to be within its sphere of influence. Mr. Hollande could have harvested the many chances that came his way to not only engage this crisis, but also promote African-led conflict resolution. France now bombs Mali knowing that its actions will be met with no resistance and maybe even support among other permanent members of the U.N. Security Council. African states, playing catch-up, need to support the intervention or struggle to

stay relevant in this conflict. The collateral damage from all this remains the same: local or regional armed forces stay illequipped to tackle such crises without training or financial support; U.N. peacekeepers continue to play second fiddle as they are delegated to clean up the trail of destruction left in the wake of this assault; militarised alliances like NATO strengthen their grip as the worlds policemen. As in the past, the cure to Africas ungovernable malaises will come from foreign shores. Which is another way of saying that there will actually be no cure. If anything, French intervention in Mali is likely to exacerbate regional conflict and strengthen

the hands of extremists in the Maghreb. The Tuareg rebels have shown little inclination to surrender. With an increase in civilian casualties, public sentiment towards the already fragile Malian government could turn hostile, only to be cultivated by separatist elements in the northern provinces and extremists elsewhere. If NATOs Libyan intervention spawned armed militants who have now joined their kinsmen in northern Mali, this assault too will have a ripple effect. A vicious cycle has been set in motion. It is no revelation that political violence in Africa comes at the cost of institution-building, without which many states are

forced to rely on resource rents. Connect the dots between intervention in a conflict, the ensuing political instability, and the adoption of open door policies in commodity-driven economies, and it is clear who profits most from Africas wars. Vive la France, vive la Franafrique! (Arun Mohan Sukumar is at The Fletcher School, Tufts University, U.S.) January 18, 2013 Making a mockery of domestic gas pricing Jobs in IT - PGPIT offers 5.5 Month IT Training with Job Exposure & Paid Internship niitpgpit.com SURYA P. SETHI

Dr. Rangarajan was my professor and I worship him as an economist and academician. However, I fail to understand why he lends his enormous reputation to reports on the energy sector that are far removed from his area of experience and expertise, especially when the Committee he recently chaired did not have a single member with any notable knowledge or understanding of the complex global gas markets. A one-hour consultation with an independent industry expert would have informed the Committee that its recommended methodology has no relevance to determining the basis or formula for the price of domestically produced gas in India a task it

set out to deliver under its terms of reference. Price sensitivity The report recognises the price sensitivity of gas demand in India, yet, like most government documents, it presents indefensible demand and supply numbers completely independent of gas prices. The report confirms that most Indian natural gas producers are currently guaranteed a well head price of at least $4.2 to $5.25/MMBTU. However, it does not clarify if this is the price for dry or wet gas thereby forgetting the economic value of natural gas liquids extracted by producers before selling the dry gas as feed stock

and/or an energy source. More importantly, the report suggests that the above price is not sufficiently remunerative to encourage domestic natural gas production but fails to provide any evidence to support such a conclusion. Can the Committee identify any significant independent conventional gas field in the world that receives or has received this high a well head price for dry natural gas year after year on an arms-length basis? The Committee justifies the formula approved for pricing natural gas from KG Basins D-6 field, overlooking the objections that the then Cabinet Secretary and I had raised against the proposed formula. Here too, the

Committee fails to point out that India is the only country in the world that adopted a formula by which the gas price rises exponentially with the price of crude between its floor price and its cap. The rest of the world follows formulae by which such linkage is a linear function, with a more gradual slope between the floor price of gas and its cap. Under the approved formula, the floor price of KG Basin gas determined at a crude price of $25/barrel is $2.50/MMBTU but it rises exponentially to $3.50/MMBTU at a crude price of $26/barrel yielding a 40 per cent increase in the price of gas for a 4 per cent increase in the price of crude. In the then relevant range of crude prices between

$50/barrel and the cap determined at $60/barrel, the price of gas varies very narrowly between $4.1 and $4.2 per MMBTU. In essence, the approved formula violated international practice to ensure that, under prevailing market conditions, the KG Basin gas receives a price that was well beyond the price at which the same gas was bid out under an international tender or its cost of service. Fortunately, KG basin produces dry gas thereby negating any additional bonanza from natural gas liquids. Suffice it to say that despite the CAGs report, the full extent of the KG Basin scam is far from being completely exposed. The Rangarajan Committee, nevertheless, finds the KG Basin

gas price, that also triggered an increase in the gas prices approved for ONGC, not sufficiently remunerative. The above shortfalls, I dare say, are minor oversights when compared to the indefensible formula recommended for determining the well head price of conventional natural gas produced in India. The recommended formula estimates the price by averaging some numbers derived from foreign gas markets even though those numbers neither represent well head price of conventional natural gas anywhere in the world nor reflect the cost of service for producing conventional natural gas in India.

In layman terms, the suggested formula establishes the fair price of carrots based on some imputed prices of bananas, apples and oranges. Let me explain this in more detail. As a first step, the Committee recommends estimating, on a monthly basis, what it calls the Average Producer Net Back for Indian Imports for the trailing 12 months by deducting $3 to $4 from the prices paid by India for import of LNG from different sources over the same period. It is recommended that all LNG imports, including spot purchases and term contracts, be included. The $3-$4 number representing current cost estimates of liquefaction, transportation and

sweetening natural gas would be updated regularly. Surely, such an exercise would yield a number. What this number represents, though, is anybodys guess. Certainly, it is not the average well head price of conventional natural gas in the countries exporting LNG to India; nor is it relevant to determining fair well head prices for Indian producers of conventional natural gas. Next, the Committee recommends that we estimate, on a monthly basis, something that it calls the Weighted Average Price to Producers in the Global Markets during the trailing 12 months. To calculate this number it uses the Henry Hub spot index as the price for all U.S. gas sales, the NBP spot

index of U.K. for all gas sales in every country comprising Europe and the Former Soviet Union and the Average Producer Net Back for all Japanese LNG imports (computed on the same basis as recommended above for India); over the same period. Again, it is recommended that total volume of all gas contracts in the respective jurisdictions be included irrespective of their differences. This exercise too will yield a number but what it represents or its relevance to Indian gas producers is beyond comprehension. Finally, the Committee recommends that the average of the two numbers calculated above, based on hitherto

unknown concepts in the global gas markets, be used to compensate producers of conventional natural gas in India. I cannot lay bare all the complexities of the regionally fragmented global gas markets here but let me simply state that natural gas varies widely in its characteristics across different sources and the three regions covered have distinctly different pricing mechanisms for gas. The ownership structures in the industry make it difficult to fathom at what point in the value chain is the profit being booked and how much. Gas contracts vary from spot purchases to long term with widely varying basis for pricing. The structure of the

regional gas market and the related gas infrastructure in the relevant jurisdiction impact gas prices significantly. Finally, nonprice elements that are not transparent, geo political considerations and security of supply concerns play an important role in the pricing of gas. The Henry Hub benchmark index is available for next day delivery and up to 108 months in the future. Similarly, the more recent NBP benchmark index permits trading of gas as a commodity on spot and longer term basis. However, importantly, the physical trade occurring at the typically quoted Henry Hub or NBP price is minuscule compared to the global trade in gas.

Disequilibrium Unlike oil, natural gas does not have a fungible global market thereby exacerbating the above complexity. The resulting disequilibrium is illustrated by the fact that in 2011 the reported average dry gas price per MMBTU at Henry Hub was $4.01 while at NBP it was $9.03 and the Japanese LNG imports averaged $14.73 cif which, based on the Rangarajan Committees definition, would yield an Average Producer Net Back of $10.50 11.50/ MMBTU for Japanese imports. IEA projects that such disequilibrium will continue at least for the coming 10-15 years.

Given above market realities and the current state of the gas industry in India, a well regulated cost of service would be the preferred option for determining the well head price of Indian gas. And as the original proponent of price discovery through limited sectoral competition, let me reiterate that, if done properly, it too deserves a far more serious consideration than that given by the Rangarajan Committee. Both these approaches have been successfully implemented in markets at a stage of development similar to India. The diffidence of the Committee in recommending these two approaches perhaps reflects its lack of confidence in Indias governance and regulatory

capacity/capability. Recommending a Mickey Mouse formulation as a substitute to improving such governance and regulatory capacity/capability is, however, clearly undesirable. As long as the PMO keeps appointing acceptable babus and academics to such important committees and specialised positions of governance and regulation, it will be the blind leading the blind and we will stumble from one blunder to another under historical myths that pervade Indias energy and other key sectors. This ruling cliques inability to deal with well informed and well intentioned professionals who raise fundamental questions is evident

in more arenas than just energy. The forbidden citadel must open its gates to such professionals if India is to move forward. (The writer, formerly Principal Adviser, Power & Energy, Government of India, is Adjunct Professor, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore) The Rangarajan Committee formula is based on numbers from foreign markets even though these do not reflect the supply, demand or cost of production in India January 18, 2013 India must get in on the ground floor

HDFC Life Term Insurance - 1 Cr. Life Cover@just 24/day. No Medicals upto 75L Cover* Buy Now www.buyhdfcslonline.com SHAILEY HINGORANI AND At the end of 2012, India completed its seventh two-year term as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. In a period that proved unexpectedly challenging for the principal organ of the U.N. system, India was actively involved in debates over crises in North Africa and the Middle East. On the more mundane but no less fundamental issue of international development, however, New Delhi has sat largely on the sidelines, paying insufficient attention to opportunities for addressing domestic priorities and enhancing Indias standing in international affairs.

Disconnect Indeed, there is a fundamental disjuncture between Indias overwhelming domestic imperatives of equitable growth on the one hand and the nations external policies on the other. Too often we are content to act the part of a powerful and technologically sophisticated nation without actually pursuing a foreign policy that might serve our basic developmental goals. Nowhere are such failures more evident than on the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). Signed into existence in 2000 by 190 countries, they represent a historic global framework and universal goals (with specific targets and indicators) in the areas of poverty, gender, health, education and the environment for all signatories to achieve by 2015. Powered in part by the MDGs, 600 million people have been lifted

out of poverty, 56 million more children go to school and 14,000 children escape death each day. Work on next goals With the 2015 deadline approaching, the international community is now starting to develop a framework for the next generation of development goals. The U.N. Secretary-General has appointed a 26 member high-level panel to advice on the new framework. Simultaneously, the U.N. is facilitating national consultations in 100 countries (including India) to make the process as participatory as possible. The panel and consultations will feed into intergovernmental negotiations preceding the adoption of a new framework in September 2013.

This process is clearly important for both poor and rich countries, yet most members of Indias foreign policy establishment and the informed public remain oblivious to its significance. It is easy to dismiss a largely U.N.-driven negotiation that could set arguably unrealistic targets for all countries to meet. India is a sovereign nation that need not take direction from any constellation of international actors. The goals themselves are not immune to internal inconsistencies and contradictions, and will be variably relevant to India. Moreover, a fixed set of overarching goals may constitute an unwise approach to development policy in general. What MDGs stand for These critiques notwithstanding, the MDGs represent an unprecedented international consensus on priorities and targets for

equitable growth. Developing the next set of MDGs affords the international community an opportunity not only to take stock of achievements since the turn of the millennium but also to establish norms and principles that will define and influence the next stage of global development. India can and should play a key role. Two principal opportunities beckon India. First, in the domestic realm, significant efficiency gains would derive from aligning the next generation of global development goals with Indias goals, only some of which overlap with the MDGs. Rather than having parallel bureaucracies for the implementation of two different development agendas, the government can do more with less by influencing global post-2015 debates to reflect Indian concerns and priorities. This may be all the more readily achieved because India is

widely seen as the ultimate laboratory for development. Moreover, many developmental challenges for example, sustainability, financial inclusion, information and communications technologies can no longer be effectively addressed within nationally circumscribed approaches. The second major opportunity lies in the international realm. The post-2015 effort offers emerging powers, particularly India, an opening to shape the rules of the game at a critical juncture of global institutional development, which can be significantly influenced by a positive Indian vision for national and global economic and social progress. If we can establish our own international aid agency and trumpet the merits of Indian soft power, then we must also actively participate in the post2015 process. As a rising power desirous of

a seat at the global high table, India can accumulate influence through constructive leadership in international institutions, which often requires creating original solutions and forging consensus around them. Three ways for India As things stand, the Indian government could do more to engage with the post2015 process. There are at least three ways in which the present level of involvement could be improved. First, the Ministry of External Affairs the governments first point of contact with the U.N. should urgently consult the relevant line ministries and State governments and commission a white paper on its own recommendations that can then be deliberated in the public sphere. Second, to be genuinely inclusive, the government should go beyond

traditional civil society to engage faithbased groups, trade unions and peoples movements in any discussion on development frameworks. Third, India should work towards building collaborations with other similarly placed countries in the international negotiations. Whether India takes note or not, the global post-2015 MDG process has institutional momentum and will result in an outcome relevant to India. By not actively participating in its formative stages, we risk missing a vital opportunity to address key domestic challenges and to shape global norms in ways that protect our interests while projecting leadership in international affairs. In the final analysis, Indian diplomacy needs to think more seriously and creatively about Indias development.

(Shailey Hingorani is Advocacy Coordinator at Save the Children. Email: January 18, 2013 The still warm embers of Operation Blue Star Choose Gmail - Free Email by Google Switch to Gmail, Sign up now! google.com CHANDER SUTA DOGRA

The damaged Akal Takht ata museum inside the temple complex in Amritsar. PHOTO: PRABHJOT SINGH GILL Every year when it happens, the country sits up with concern. In Punjab though, the death anniversaries of the assassins of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who ordered the attack on the Golden Temple, or those of General A.S. Vaidya he was the Indian Army chief in 1984 and

executed Operation Blue Star are routinely observed at the temple. This, because nearly three decades after the operation to flush terrorists out of the holiest of Sikh shrines, there still exists a sharp difference between how the Sikh community and the rest of the country view these men. This January 6 too, the Shiromani Gurudwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) held a quiet early morning prayer ceremony and offered siropas , or scarves, to the relatives of Satwant Singh and Kehar Singh, the two Delhi Police sepoys who shot Mrs Gandhi in 1984. It was their 24th death anniversary; both were hanged in 1989. A similar ceremony was held at Agwan, the village of Satwant Singh in Gurdaspur district. The Jathedar of Akal Takht was there at both places.

Three months ago, on October 9, the SGPC held a bhog and paid tributes to Harjinder Singh and Sukhdev Singh, who were sentenced and hanged for assassinating Gen. Vaidya. And each year on October 31, the death anniversary of Beant Singh, the third assassin of Mrs Gandhi who was shot dead soon after she was killed, is observed in a similar manner. No action Honoured as quami shaheed or martyrs of the community, the portraits of the men, along with that of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, adorn the Sikh museum in the Golden Temple complex. Just like the government honours its police and army officers and hands them bravery awards, we do it for our heroes, says Manjit Singh Calcutta, who was the SGPC secretary for

more than a decade, after Operation Blue Star. Discomfiting as it must be, the Indian state is both unable and unwilling to respond to the public honour that the leaders of the Sikh community bestow on these men. The security establishment knows well that these men have gone down in the annals of Sikh history as heroes who laid down their lives for the faith. But most in the Sikh community have a sneaking admiration for them, which is why no government has taken the risk of putting an end to these annual rituals in the Temple. The fear of a violent backlash holds the government back from any move against this. The unwritten policy is to ignore things and hope that with the passage of time, the communitys angst will wane. Though there are few takers for Khalistan

in Punjab today, the anger over the attack on the Golden Temple is another thing. Till the mid-1990s, it was very difficult to hold these ceremonies because the government was opposed and used to either put us in jail a few days before it, or stop key people from entering the Golden Temple complex, recalls Calcutta. Some years later, the crowds were more, and some sloganeering too did take place. At other times, they were muted, hurried ceremonies, like this year. Reaching out No leader of the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) attended the two ceremonies honouring the assassins held in the last three months, and the SAD dominated SGPC sent a junior functionary to mark its attendance. The Akalis discreetly

dissociated itself from the bhog ceremonies of the assassins this time, only because of the furore, even in Punjab, that resulted after it gave its approval to the construction of a memorial dedicated to those who died defending the Golden Temple complex. The foundation stone of the memorial was laid on June 6, observed as Ghallughara divas (Sikh holocaust day) last year, amid widespread consternation that it would give a fillip to the extremist fringe that had been pressing for its construction since many years. Instead of a conventional monument, it is coming up in the shape of an innocuous gurudwara , which no one can object to. The SAD has traditionally drawn strength from its Sikh religious moorings but of late has tried to adopt a more inclusive image, reaching out to the Hindus and other communities in Punjab. Its alliance with

the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is a tightrope walk that compels it to cave into hardliners within the Sikh constituency. It is no secret that the SAD relied on the radical organisations for support during the SGPC elections in 2010. By appeasing the hardliners for political gains, the Akalis are playing with fire, says Gurdarshan Singh Dhillon, who authored the SGPC white paper on Operation Blue Star. Radical organisations are playing on the still strong passions over Operation Blue Star to promote the larger agenda for a separate Sikh nation of Khalistan. Last August, the Dal Khalsa a militant outfit from 1982 to 1994, which has been spearheading the memorial project, held a prayer service for Dilawar Singh, the human bomb who killed Punjab Chief

Minister Beant Singh in 1995. The Dal Khalsa also released a directory of 220 martyrs killed by the Army during Operation Blue Star. The directory carries a message from Kashmiri separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, in which he has written that Sikhs and Kashmiris have been brought together because of their suffering at the hands of a common oppressor. Two weeks ago the States Director General of Police, Sumedh Singh Saini, warned that intelligence from the highest quarters indicated that there was a strong move to destabilise the State. Ominously, there is a growing cult around the militants Bhindranwale and Rajoana who are emerging as religious icons for sections of the youth. Stickers and posters of them can be seen on cars, T-shirts and at village corners. These may be straws in the wind,

but there is no telling where they will settle. [email protected] January 19, 2013 First set up the labs, then dream the Nobel Study in Germany - Find Top Colleges in Germany. Get Info on Admission,Course,Fees,Visa. Shiksha.com/Study+in+Germany SRIRAM BALASUBRAMANIAN At the 100th annual session of the Indian Science Congress held in Kolkata earlier this month, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh urged scientists to give top priority to research that would address pressing problems in the country,

such as energy security, agricultural productivity, safe drinking water and sanitation. He asked scientists across disciplines to collaborate with one another, and with private research labs to foster innovation that would improve living conditions in India. Last in retaining talent But if that is to happen, the country would first need an environment for research. A recent survey by the National Bureau of Economic Research in the United States (http://spectrum.ieee.org/atwork/tech-careers/the-globalbrain-trade) contains some revealing numbers. Switzerland has the highest rate of immigrant

scientists and the United States, unsurprisingly, is the most popular academic destination around the world. But shockingly for India, 40 per cent of its researchers are emigrating to pursue their research abroad; the aspiring economic powerhouse is at the bottom of the list for retaining research talent. So why does a country with a trillion dollar economy not attract its own researchers? A peek into the state of research in India can give some answers. In 2011, of the 14,617,000 people who graduated from the colleges in India, 12 per cent pursued post graduate degrees and an abysmal one per cent pursued research in the country. The low interest in

research is due to sub standard facilities, which in turn is due to a lack of funding in most research institutes. Indians are willing to pursue research but not in India. In 2011, the number of students from India pursuing higher education (masters and PhD) in the U.S. was 103,895 and they formed 14 per cent of the higher education population in the U.S. alone. In terms of research productivity, India has 7.8 scientists per 1,000 population compared to 180.66 in Canada, 53.13 in Korea and 21.15 in the U.S. The scarcity in research was vindicated by the number of patents filed in 2010. There were a total of 36,812 patents filed in India, of which only 7,044 were

domestic applications and the remaining, foreign patent applications. Of these 7,044 applications, only 1,725 applications were granted patents. While quantity is not necessarily a prescriptive of the quality, it does provide a perspective on emphasis on research in the system. One of the pillars of higher educational institutes, leave alone research, is the amount of capital that is invested in educational activities. Even in the 12th Five Year Plan proposed by the Planning Commission, the educational expenditure is not anywhere near the proposed target of six per cent of GDP. The investment in higher education as

of 2009-10 according to a recent report released by the University Grants Commission (Higher Education at a glance) was a paltry 1.25 per cent of GDP. The U.S. on the other hand has a public expenditure at 3.1 per cent (2007) of its almost $15 trillion GDP. Harvard Universitys endowment stands at $32 billion whereas the total extramural grants provided to Indian universities put together is about Rs.12 billion! As a first step up, there should be an increase in spending in higher education research to at least two per cent of the GDP in order to try infusing capital into academic research. The policy document released at the Science Congress in the first

week of January was titled Science, Technology and Innovation. It contained no details, no road map for research, and was more aspirational than visionary. Besides everything else, India does not enable scientists and corporates to make more revenues from their intellectual property rights. Not only does India suffer from the lack of a culture of research or shortage of funds, but there is also a lack of clarity in matters such as Intellectual Property regulations that could help researchers earn greater revenues. The Protection and Utilisation of Public Funded Intellectual Property Bill, (PUPFIP), the Indian equivalent of the Bayh-Dohle Act,

has been pending in Parliament since 2008. If passed, it could help to leverage the best out of the intellectual properties of patents. A recent report from the Indian School Business (India R&D 2011 Industry & Academia Linkages) estimates that the total R&D spending of the top 100 companies is Rs.11,500 crore. Only 13 per cent of it goes into partnerships with universities. Intellectual property regulation and awareness could assist in increasing this share of spending by corporates in building university research centres. Alumni involvement The top 19 out of the 20 universities in the U.S. News

rankings have a common dominating denominator. All of them are run predominately by alumni of the institutions. Even in public universities such as Purdue, there is a significant alumni involvement in the boards. In India, this is an idea nonexistent in government institutes and very rare in private institutes. Alumni involvement ensures that the universities interest is the most supreme (especially in an era where education is non profit) and everything else becomes secondary. As such, it would be an interesting idea for the state to impose a minimum 50 per cent involvement of the alumni in the functioning of university boards. This would democratise the

process more, and help to nurture talented alumni who could contribute back to the universities. President Pranab Mukherjee observed at the Science Congress that a Nobel Prize in Indian science was long overdue, as if every country has a predetermined right to be given the Nobel. Lets get the research going first. January 19, 2013 When the water in the spring turned black Electricity Bill Payment - Pay Electricity Bills Easily Online Avoid Long Queues. Sign Up Now! Myuniverse.co.in/Electricity_Bills RAHUL PANDITA

PERMANENCE OF LOSS:In Barbarshah in old Srinagar, one house they say smouldered for six weeks.PHOTO: VIJAY KOUL ANGER AND HOPE:Kashmiri Pandits protest in Delhi in 2006. PHOTO: SHANKER CHAKRAVARTY Kashmir Valley, 1989-90

It was from a neighbour that we heard the first rumours. He had gone to the ration shop to get sugar when he overheard a man exclaiming Inshallah, next ration we will buy in Islamabad! It was around this time that bus conductors in Lal Chowk could be

heard shouting Sopore, Handwor, Upore . Sopore and Handwara were border towns while Upore means across. Across the Line of Control. It was meant as an enticement for the youth to cross over the border for arms training, to launch a jihad against India. On a hill in the Badami Bagh cantonment, someone had painted JKLF. One could see it from a distance. It stood for Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front. It was rumoured to be an organization of young men who had crossed over the border to receive arms training. At school we heard the word mujahid for the first time. We

knew this word. We had heard it on TV, accompanied by images of men in Afghanistan firing rockets from their shoulders. But in the context of Kashmir, it seemed out of place. What were mujahids to do in Kashmir? On June 23, 1989, pamphlets were distributed in Srinagar. It was an ultimatum to Muslim women, by an organization that called itself Hazb-i-Islami, to comply with Islamic standards within two days or face action. Pandit women were asked to put a tilak on their foreheads for identification. On September 2, the 300-year-old Baba Reshi shrine was gutted in a fire under mysterious

circumstances. On the same morning, a wireless operator of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), was shot in our neighbourhood. On the afternoon of September 14, I was playing cricket in the school grounds. My side won the match, and I was about to treat myself to an orange lolly with my pocket money when I felt someones hand on my shoulder. I turned back and saw Father standing there. He smiled. Go and get your bag, we have to go home, he said. I thought something terrible had happened at home. Why, what happened? I asked.

Someone has been shot in Habba Kadal. The situation will turn worse. So we need to head home. That was when the first Pandit fell to bullets. Some armed men had entered the house of the political activist Tika Lal Taploo and shot him dead. The next day, Father did not let me go to school. We were told that Taploos funeral procession was pelted with stones. But barring that, nothing more untoward happened immediately after his death. I went back to school two days later. During the Hindi class, when the Muslim boys would be away for Urdu class, the Pandit teacher got an opportunity to discuss the killing with us.

Times are beginning to get tough, she said. That is why it is important for all of you to study with renewed vigour. In its preliminary investigation, the state police believed that Taploos killing did not fit the pattern emerging from the activities of Kashmiri militants. Twelve days after Taploos death, the then chief minister, Farooq Abdullah, performed a small piece of classical dance along with dancer Yamini Krishnamurthy during a cultural function at the Martand temple. A few days later, he assured people that militancy would end soon. On Eid-e-Milad-un-Nabi, on October 14, a massive crowd

gathered near the Budshah chowk in the heart of Srinagar, and from there, it marched towards Eidgah to the graveyard that had been renamed the martyrs graveyard. The onlookers cheered and showered shireen on the marchers as if to welcome a marriage procession. That evening, father returned home with a neighbour and they told us they had witnessed the procession. The crowd was shouting slogans that had shocked them. Yahan kya Mustafa chalega, Nizam-e-

La sharqiya la garbiya, Islamia Islamia

What will work here? The rule of Mustafa No eastern, no western, only Islamic, only Islamic Zalzala aaya hai kufr ke maidaan mein, Lo mujahid aa gaye maidaan mein An earthquake has occurred in the realm of the infidels, The mujahids have come out to fight It was indeed an earthquake. It toppled everything in Kashmir in the next few weeks. Within a few days the whole scenario changed. There was another series of bomb

blasts outside other symbols of Indianness India Coffee House, Punjab National Bank, the Press Trust of India. Then the tide turned against wine shops and cinema halls. It was only much later that we were able to connect this turmoil to world events occurring around the same time. The Russians had withdrawn from Afghanistan nine years after they swept into the country. In Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini had urged Muslims to kill the author of The Satanic Verses . In Israel, a Palestinian bomber struck in a bus for the first time, killing sixteen civilians. A revolution was surging across Eastern Europe; and a bloodied frenzy was about to be unleashed

against the Armenian Christian community in Azerbaijan. In the midst of this chaos, my eldest uncle came from my fathers village to visit us. The water in the spring at the goddesss sanctum has turned black, he whispered. This was considered to be ominous. Legend had it that whenever any catastrophe befell our community, the spring waters turned black. That it was indeed a catastrophe became clear on the night of January 19, 1990. Jammu, post-exile, early 90s Some of our erstwhile neighbours had realized that we were in an

acute financial crisis and that this was the right time to buy our properties at a fraction of what they were really worth. The houses of Pandits who had lived in posh colonies were much in demand. Many in Kashmir wanted to shift their relatives, who stayed in villages or congested parts of the city, to better houses, to better lives. You would be sitting in your home when a man would suddenly arrive at your doorstep. Asalam Walekum, he would greet you while removing his shoes at your doorstep. Once inside, he would embrace you tightly. He would not come empty-handed. He always carried symbols of our past lives with him a bunch of lotus stems, or a carton of apples, or a packet of

saffron. He sat cross-legged beside you, running his eyes over the room over the kitchen created by making a boundary of bricks and empty canisters, over the calendar depicting your saints, over your clothes hanging from a peg on the wall, and over to your son, sweating profusely in one corner and studying from a Resnick and Hallidays physics textbook. He would nod sympathetically, accepting a cup of kahwa, and begin his litany of woes. You people are lucky, he would say. You live in such poor conditions, but at least you can breathe freely. We have been destroyed by this Azadi brigade, by these imbeciles who Pakistan may it burn in the worst fires of hell! gave guns to. We cannot

even say anything against them there, because if we do, we will be shot outside our homes. Or somebody will throw a hand grenade at us. He would then sigh and a silence would descend upon the room, broken only by his slurps. Accha, tell me, how is Janki Nath? What is his son doing? Engineering! Oh, Allah bless him! He would patiently finish his kahwa while you sat wondering what had brought him to your doorstep. It was then that he came to the point. Pandit ji, he would begin. You must be wondering why I am here. I remember the good old

days when we lived together. Whatever education we have, it is thanks to the scholarship of your community. Tuhundie paezaar mal chhu it is nothing but the dirt of your slippers. Anyway . . . He would pause again. I pray to Allah that before I close my eyes, I may see you back in Srinagar. But right now, it is so difficult. Tell me, what is your son doing? Oh, its his most crucial board exam this year! Pandit ji, do you have enough money to send him to study engineering, like Janki Naths son? I can see that you dont have it. This is why I am here.

And then he would ask the crucial question: Tohie ma chhu kharchawun ? Do you wish to spend? This was a well-thought-of euphemism he had invented to relieve you of the feeling of parting with your home. Do you wish to spend? meant Do you want to sell your home? You have had no source of income for months now, he would continue. This is all I can offer you for your house. I know it is worth much more, but these are difficult times even for us. If you relented, he would pull out a wad of cash.

Here, take this advance. Oh no, what are you saying? Receipt? You should have hit me with your shoe instead. No receipt is required. I will come later to get the papers signed. He would also forcibly leave a hundred-rupee note in your sons hands and leave. A few days later, a neighbour would come around and ask Oh, Jan Mohammed was here as well? His son has become the divisional commander of Hizbul Mujahideen, the neighbour would inform you. Most of us did not have a choice. By 1992, the locks of most Pandit

houses had been broken. Many houses were burnt down. In Barbarshah in old Srinagar, they say, Nand Lals house smouldered for six weeks. It was made entirely of deodar wood. The owner of Dr. Shivjis X-ray clinic, Kashmirs first, was told his house in Nawab Bazaar took fifteen days to burn down completely. At places where Pandit houses could not be burnt down due to their proximity to Muslim houses, a novel method was employed to damage the house. A few men would slip into a Pandit house and cut down the wooden beam supporting the tin roof. As a result, it would cave in during the next snowfall. Then the

tin sheets would be sold and so would the costly wood. Within a few months, the house would be destroyed. A few weeks after my parents trip to Ludhiana, my uncle came to our room, accompanied by a middleman. He is offering to buy our house, Uncle said. He put a number in front of us. This is ridiculously low, Father said. This is much less than what I have spent on it in the last few years alone. I know, the man said. But you have no idea what has become of your house. After you left, miscreants ransacked it

completely. They took away even your sanitary fittings and water ran through your house for months. A few walls have already collapsed. It is in a very poor state now. Nobody said a word. From her bed, Ma finally spoke. How does it look from outside? The plaster has broken off completely, but your evergreens are growing well. They are touching your first-floor balcony now. And so, home is lost to us permanently.

(Rahul Pandita is Associate Editor, Open magazine. His book Our Moon Has Blood Clots is published by V intage, Random House India.)

By 1992, the locks of most Pandit houses had been broken. Many houses were burnt down.

The exodus of Pandits from the Valley is an aspect of the Kashmir conflict that has received scant attention. In a book just released, Rahul Pandita , who was 14 at the time he and his family left their home in Srinagar forever, gives a searing account of the displacement, struggle and survival of the community

January 19, 2013 Bleeding from a triple haemorrhage The Russians are fleeing - The Russians are fleeing Syria, a western attack is imminent www.publici.com VIJAY PRASHAD

Three heads of the United Nations humanitarian agencies wrote a cri de coeur for Syria on January 11. Antonio Guterres (U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees), Ertharin Cousins (World Food Program) and Anthony Lake (UNICEF) noted, Syria is undoubtedly the most complex and dangerous of all conflicts for 2013. Inside Syria, four million

people are in grave danger shelter, food, education, clean water, health care and security are no longer available to them. Additionally, two million Syrians have fled the country for Lebanon and Jordan. The most serious danger is posed to children, half of the displaced and refugees, whose well-being is compromised. Too many have been injured or killed; too many have seen family and friends die, their homes and schools reduced to rubble. Rapid deterioration The situation continues to deteriorate precipitously. The U.N. produced three Syria Humanitarian Assistance Response Plans in 2012, and four

Syria Regional Response Plans. It is highly unusual for such plans to be revised so often, says Radhouane Nouicer, the regional humanitarian coordinator for Syria. It is indicative of the rapid developments on the ground. The magnitude of the humanitarian crisis is indisputable. The major snow and rain storms that swept the Levant in early January devastated the fragile U.N. camps, flooding al-Zaatri (Jordan), causing fires in Atmeh (Idlib, Syria) and Ar Raqqa (Syria), and leaving children to struggle with jaundice and the cold near the Turkish border in Bab alSalameh (Syria). Misery is the mood of the Syrians as they enter another winter with no provisions

and no hope. A bitter winter is the new enemy, say the three U.N. chiefs. On January 6, Bashar al-Assad offered talks to bring the political crisis to a close. The Syrian Opposition rejected the offer, but not without cause. Mr. Assads own proposal deliberately excluded those who have betrayed Syria. Who would define those who have not betrayed Syria and could therefore be legitimate partners in the discussion? At the same time, the Opposition rejects any dialogue that includes Mr. Assad, but also agrees that political dialogue is the only way forward. There has been no movement to

the middle. Paralysis continues in the name of dialogue. Since the uprising began in March 2011, there have been several failed attempts at a political dialogue. Neither side in an incredibly polarised situation is willing to come to the table without preconditions. The Oppositions minimum demand is for Mr. Assad to leave; Mr. Assad meanwhile shuns those whom he calls terrorists. Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annans peace agenda of the summer of 2012 fell on its knees because of this standoff. U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimis mission might fail for the same reason. Mr. Brahimi, who brokered the successful end to the Lebanese Civil War in 1989,

lost his equilibrium, telling the BBC of Mr. Assads January 6 speech, What has been said this time is not really different and it is perhaps even more sectarian, more one-sided. What you need is reaching out and recognising that there is a very serious problem between Syrians, and that Syrians have got to talk to one another to solve it. Syrias Opposition is in disarray. Its new incarnation (November 2012) was shaped with help from the West and the Gulf Arabs. Given its experience in Libya, the West fears a loss of control over the Opposition. This is the main reason why the U.S. hastened to ban the radical Islamist al-Nusra front, to show that it can shape

Syrias leadership. The banning of al-Nusra does not mean that the West is allergic to Islamism. After all, the head of the new Opposition group is Moaz alKhatib, the former imam of Damascus Umayyad Mosque. The Gulf Arabs are not averse to the more radical Islamists, but they have gone along with the West for now. Mr. al-Khatib criticised the banning of al-Nusra because he knows that it plays a significant role on the ground. All groups that call for the fall of the regime need to work together, he said gloomily in mid-December. But the paymasters wanted to have their way, dividing the Opposition between the more united front led by Mr. al-Khatib and the Salafis of the Syrian Islamic Front (formed

on December 21 without alNusra). The rump secular and democratic Arab nationalists in the National Democratic Rally are now a pale shadow of what they were in their heyday of the 1980s. In the early days of the 2011 rebellion, the regime arrested the leaders of the Rallys constituents, people such as Ghias Youn Soud, Omar Kashash, Fahmi Yousef, and Tuhama Mahmoud Marouf. Having removed the secular dissidents from the fray in 2011, the regime enabled the Islamists and liberals to take up positions of authority in the new Opposition. When the secular dissidents emerged from their cells, they had little choice but to join up with the

Opposition, on the latters terms. One of their own, George Sabra, is now a Vice President of al-Khatibs group. Unity eludes the opposition some of this is a consequence of Mr. Assads clever manipulation of its constituents (such as the Kurdish groups), but most is thanks to the Wests interventions. Syrias political factions remain deadlocked. Divided world A cold war has erupted around Syria. On the one side is the West with its Gulf Arab partners and Turkey. With different motivations, they seek to consolidate their gains after losing

their pillars of stability in Tunisia and Egypt. On the other side are two different blocs. First there are the Russians who have an old relationship with Syria, where they have a warm water port. The Russians have provided Mr. Assads regime with weaponry and with diplomatic cover (although the Putin government has cooled off on this lately). Second there are Iran and Iraq, both of whose governments are wary of the growth of Gulf Arab power. The Gulf Arabs are fully behind the oppositional strands, as long as their ideological fellows in the Muslim Brothers and the Salafis come out on top formations that the Iranians and the Iraqis do not like on confessional and political grounds.

Turkey took an advanced position for the removal of Mr. Assad, but when he set in motion his Kurdish strategy the Turks had to take cover behind Natos Patriot wall. With Egypts Morsi distracted by his domestic problems, and with Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Iran unsettled by the geopolitical complexities, the Syria Contact Group that they had comprised is silent. The West is wrapped up in a contradiction. Mr. Assad has been a reliable factor of stability for Israel, something a radical Islamist government would not be. This is why Israel does not favour the removal of Mr. Assad. The West cannot mute its rhetoric, but it has stayed its hand for a full-fledged

intervention. Russian intransigence has been a gift to Washington, with the latter taking cover behind the U.N. Security Council veto while it continues to offer its stale rhetoric of regime change. The geopolitical standoff has not drawn down the maximum positions of all sides. The West and the Gulf Arabs call for Mr. Assads departure; the Russians and Iranians support his role in any future political arrangement. What weaponry the West and the Gulf Arabs provide the oppositional fighters is nothing more than what allows them to maintain their standoff against Mr. Assads legions. Such cynicism bleeds Syria. A U.N. report from

late December points out that the long conflict has become overtly sectarian in nature. Feeling threatened and under attack, ethnic and religious minority groups have increasingly aligned themselves with parties to the conflict, deepening sectarian divides. Sectarianism, the fruit of geopolitical cynicism, now allows the West to feverishly contemplate the break-up of Syria, something that neither the regime nor the Opposition will countenance. A fragile hope rests on the revitalisation of Arab nationalism as a cord that binds the people across the widening sectarian divides. But in the dungeons of the Baath, Syrian nationalism was

asphyxiated. It is too much to hope for its revival in the midst of this tortured struggle. The politics is bewildering, the human suffering intolerable. January 22, 2013 Without integration, no lasting settlement Pension Plans - Invest 50,000 only& Get 63 Lacs Compare All Plans with SBI Life SBIPension.Policybazaar.com TAPAN KUMAR BOSE

NO DIVERSION:In several resolutions, the Nagaland Legislative Assembly has called for unification of all Naga inhabited areas under one administrative unit. PHOTO: PTI

Last month, Manipur was on fire once again. This round was triggered by the accusation that Colonel Livingston of the NSCN (IM) had molested Meitei actor Ms Momoko on December 18, 2012. Protests turned violent when the State government claimed he was beyond their reach, inside a peace camp protected by the Indo-Naga ceasefire agreement with the NSCN I-M (National Socialist Council of Nagaland IsakMuivah) group. Compounding the problem, NSCN justified the incident Momoko had abused the Nagas. Nagas in Imphal and those travelling back to their villages in the hills for Christmas were attacked by Manipuri insurgent groups. Two Naga men were killed in Kongkan village,

Ukhrul district. The Nagas declared a 72-hour bandh in the hills. It showed that all it required was a spark to ignite the tinderbox of Manipur where the dominant Meteis and minority southern Naga coexist in uneasy tension. A peace agreement that leaves out justice for the Nagas outside Nagaland is destined to join the dust heap of faltering peace accords. At the core The issue of integration of Naga inhabited areas lies at the core of the ongoing negotiations. It is an old demand and figures in the succession of peace agreements to resolve the Naga conflict the Akbar Hydari Agreement 1947,

the Sixteen Point Agreement 1960 establishing Nagaland state and the Shillong Accord 1975 which precipitated the emergence of the NSCN. Subsequently, the Nagaland Legislative Assembly in several resolutions called for unification of all Naga inhabited areas under one administrative unit. New Delhi rejects the demand. Political and partisan reasons dictated by the compulsions of coalition politics constrain the government. Apparently, some negotiators believe the NSCM (IM) can be persuaded to abandon integration. In their assessment, only the Manipuri Nagas are pushing for integration. They see Naga society as still divided on

tribal and communal lines and the anti-Tangkul agitation of 2008 as evidence of a persisting divide. In particular, intelligence agencies argue that apart from historic tribal hostility, the Angami, Sema, Ao and Jakasang Nagas who dominate Nagaland State fear they would lose jobs to Tangkul (Manipur) Nagas in an integrated Nagalim. To bank on this old divide ignores new parallel ongoing processes of reconciliation initiated by Naga civil society bodies, especially the Forum for Naga Reconciliation formed at the height of the antiTangkul agitation for communal amity. The Naga Peace Convention, in 2008 paved the way for bringing together panoply

of Naga traditional and social organisations and engaged the underground groups in a series of dialogues for reconciliation towards building a common front. Similarly, in Manipur, the southern Nagas initiated a tripartite dialogue with the State and Central governments on an interim Alternative Arrangement for a state within a state. The inspiration and organisational zeal for such initiatives come from a proximate group of middle class educated professionals active in human rights, student, environmental and gender rights groupings. The NSCN (I-M) is aware that it cannot afford to make a compromise on the demand for

integration. New Delhi is also aware of this position. Instead of an integration of all Naga inhabited areas, the compromise on offer is a supra state body. According to the Guwahati-based The Seven Sisters Post, in November 2011, the government was willing to create an overarching body to oversee the cultural, traditional and other aspects of Naga life inside Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh and Assam. It was vehemently opposed by the political parties and sections of the people of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur. The Prime Minister and the Union Home Minister denied it; so did the NSCN (I-M). But the newspaper corroborated the story as based on the status report

submitted by the governments interlocutor, Mr. R.S. Pandey, to the Prime Minister. Such confusing reports have fuelled fears that the NSCN (I-M) has surrendered several key demands of the Nagas including that of integration. At the last round of talks in November 2012, the joint statement spoke of an honourable solution based on recognition of contemporary realities and a future vision consistent with the imperatives of the 21st century. Evidently, contemporary realities refers to the violence that broke out in Manipur in opposition to the extension of the ceasefire to its hill districts and Imphals

continuing rejection of integration. The Nagas see this as an attempt to pressure the NSCN (I-M) to acquiesce to a halfway house, the contours of which are yet to be clarified. Where the dialogue is going Analysts argue that the relative peace and prosperity created by the prolonged ceasefire has brought the Nagas closer to the mainstream of Indian society. The burgeoning migration of Naga youth to Indian cities for higher education and employment has deepened social interaction and economic relations. It has expanded the base of Naga middle classes who are breaking out of traditional social and cultural

mores. In a significant development, Naga civil society, which was as divided as the underground groups, has joined hands and formed civic bodies that cut across tribal, community and denominational divides. This has provided a forum to the various underground groups to work together for an honourable solution. The time has come for reassessment of the negotiation process. One cannot emphasise more the need for a larger political vision. It is important to recognise that the focus on the demand for integration marks a vital shift from the earlier position of no compromise on independence.

Already, at the outset, the NSCN (I-M) had agreed to keep the issues of Nagas in Myanmar and right to self determination outside the ambit of the discussions. It reflected willingness to seek an honourable solution that recognised the uniqueness of Naga history within the larger Indian polity. In Manipur, New Delhi is engaged in counterinsurgency operations against underground Meitei groups waging an armed struggle for independence. A division of the former Manipur Raj is anathema for Meitei armed groups and a section of Meitei elite. While the Meitei groups are

still locked in hostile competition for supremacy, Naga armed groups are talking to each other. The internal process of reconciliation initiated by Naga civil society indicates a general acceptance of the terms on which the NSCN (I-M) is negotiating with New Delhi. Integration is high on the agenda. If the NSCN (I-M) fails to deliver, a return to the dangerous days cannot be ruled out. New Delhi needs to take note of Nagalands Chief Minister Neiphiu Rios warning We are hoping that good sense will prevail and lead to early settlement. If the government of India fails to reach a settlement, it will be a lost opportunity.

(Tapan Kumar Bose is associated with the South Asia Forum for Human Rights) January 22, 2013 Rahul, your time begins now Pension Plans - Invest 50,000 only& Get 63 Lacs Compare All Plans with SBI Life SBIPension.Policybazaar.com SMITA GUPTA

POWER AND HOPE:After the celebrations, many would want to know whether the move will be a game changer for 2014. PHOTO: PTI The celebrations on the streets of Jaipur and outside 10 Janpath in Delhi on January 19 by

Congress workers minutes after Rahul Gandhi was named vice president of the party may be dismissed as the usual orchestrated display of adulation. But there was nothing planned in the standing ovation Mr. Gandhi received the next day, when he moved the 1,600-odd members of the All-India Congress Committee (AICC) gathered at Jaipurs Birla Auditorium to tears and laughter with his personalised exposition of the nature of power and hope. In his eight-year-long political career, it was perhaps his first act of leadership, as he connected with a party whose members had been increasingly expressing their doubts about his capacity to

reverse the Congresss failing fortunes. On January 20, he didnt just touch a chord in the young and restless, as he identified himself with their dreams and aspirations; he clearly surprised his hard-bitten seniors, too, who also struggled to their feet to cheer and embrace him. Impact of speech In revealing chilling details of a childhood, punctuated by tragedy, his mothers fears for him and her warning that power is a poisoned chalice unless it is used to empower the powerless, he laid himself bare. For the intensely private Mr. Gandhi, a man who party colleagues say lacks the warmth and personal touch that

father Rajiv Gandhi had, it must have been a difficult decision to get personal. But the impact of the revelations demonstrated that it was an inspired decision, one, Congress sources say, was taken in conjunction with sister Priyanka Gandhi. His speech certainly pumped new energy into a party battered by charges of corruption, bewildered by a wave of social unrest, and demoralised by electoral failures. But after the charred debris of the crackers that were burst in celebration is swept away, the question that begs to be addressed is: can the tajposhi, coronation of Mr. Gandhi be a game changer for the Congress in the general election of 2014?

Especially, as his track record in the last three years has been dismal? Two, can he change the system he criticised for being unresponsive to the aspirations of the people, and a Congress that privileges outsiders over party workers? His father Rajiv Gandhi made his electrifying power brokers speech at the Congresss centenary session in Mumbai way back in 1985, but his sons address to the AICC made clear that nothing had changed in 27 years. Rise and fall in U.P. Mr. Gandhis first five years in active politics after he was elected as a Member of Parliament in 2004 were relatively smooth: the spotlight was on mother Sonia

Gandhi who had led the party to victory after eight years in the political wilderness, and then gained sainthood by refusing the prime ministership. When Mr. Gandhi began his political forays, contesting his first election from Amethi, and campaigning for fellow Congress candidates in Uttar Pradesh, those who filled village roads and balconies of mofussil towns didnt want to know what he stood for, or whether he had a vision for U.P. A young good-looking Gandhi again symbolised hope, and the promise of the return of a family that had served the people well. The first shock came in 2007, when the Congress won just 22 Assembly seats in U.P., three less

than the 25 it got in 2002. But just two years later in 2009, it scooped up 22 Parliament seats in U.P., shocking its competitors. Mr. Gandhi was credited at the time for galvanising the youth vote, perfectly complementing Prime Minister Manmohan Singhs image as the man who had steered India through a global economic downturn. It was the perfect launch pad for the young leader to build on the U.P. electorates verdict. But three years later, in the run-up to the U.P. Assembly elections, even though he was placed at the centre of the partys campaign, the Congress won just 28 seats. Criticism

Ever since then, Mr. Gandhi became the butt of criticism even though privately articulated within the Congress. Party men mocked his efforts to democratise the youth wings of the party, criticised the fact that very few could get past a tight circle of advisers, and debunked his scientific method of choosing potential youth leaders through examinations. Unlike his mother, he does not understand Indian politics: that was the verdict of many party men, who pointed out how he often fell prey to advice from those who had a way with words rather than an understanding of politics. The contacts Rahul made with real people were carefully choreographed by his minders for

maximum impact, making it almost impossible for him to get any unfiltered feedback. Last year, in the midst of the U.P. elections, he revealed during an off-the-record conversation with a group of journalists that his desire to change things, to take decisions, was severely circumscribed by senior party leaders. Now, he can no longer duck behind that excuse. As party vice president, he will have a much larger role in decisionmaking, with the general secretaries now likely to report to him. As head of the five-man Election Coordination Committee which will oversee all party activities related to the next elections, his time begins now.

Using his new powers, can he sustain the uplifting mood he created in Jaipur, and create a winning strategy for 2014? He has won his first battle by rewinning the confidence of his party: he now has to win the trust of the nation. January 22, 2013 Going from Zero FIRs to e-FIRs Online Complaint Forum. - File Your Complaint Here. Immediate Strong Action on Company. Consumer-ComplaintForum.akosha.com APARNA VISWANATHAN

On January 18, 2013, Delhi police chief Neeraj Kumar announced

that Zero First Information Reports (FIRs) may be registered on the basis of a womans statement at any police station irrespective of jurisdiction. This means women can file an FIR at any police station and the complaint is required to be registered on the basis of the womans complaint verbatim. Mr. Kumar stated: The womans statement has to be taken as gospel truth and a probe needs to be initiated on its basis. Important step forward At the same time, the Delhi police chief announced a series of other measures such as the recruitment of 418 women sub-inspectors and 2,088 women constables,

deployment of PCR vans outside womens colleges, the provision that women can call 100 to seek assistance to be dropped home at night by a PCR van, and 24-hour police cover for areas around entertainment hubs with heightened security between 8 pm and 1 am. While the foregoing measures must certainly be welcomed as an important step forward towards making the criminal justice system functional, it is surprising that e-governance has not been utilised by the Delhi police as an important solution in a country which is considered the worlds leading provider of IT enabled solutions. E-governance is the application of information and communication

technology to delivering government services, exchange of information and integration of various stand-alone systems and services between the government and citizens as well as back-office processes within the government. Through e-governance, government services can be provided to citizens in an efficient and transparent manner, which is of desperate need in India. As shown by the introduction of the Zero FIR, the starting point towards improving criminal justice is the filing of the criminal complaint itself. It is well known that the filing of FIRs, particularly for cognisable offenses, is an extremely difficult exercise more so for a rape victim who has

to ceaselessly recount the horrific event. Police stations often refuse to register FIRs for cognisable complaints, and innumerable rapes around the country go unreported. The victims then are forced to file a private complaint in court under Section 156(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) seeking an order directing the police to register an FIR. The police chiefs announcement that the womans statement will be taken as the gospel truth is an important first step that will hopefully enable rape victims to register an FIR. The police have often taken the view that, under Section 154 of the CrPC, complaints need to be investigated before the FIR is

registered because the complaint could be a disguised civil or commercial dispute or a way of settling personal enmity. Complaints of criminal cheating and fraud are sometimes filed as a way of pressuring business associates to settle financial disputes or for personal grudges. However, this is highly unlikely to occur in the case of rape. In fact, there is no reason why all complaints for at least cognisable offences should not be registered as FIRs and then investigated. While the Supreme Court has, in various judgments, taken contradictory views on the issue of whether the police are required to investigate a complaint before registering an FIR under Section

154 of the CrPC, it has repeatedly expressed its deep anguish over the failure of police to register FIRs, particularly in rape cases. Hopefully, the police will now register an FIR based on the womans statement as per the recently announced measures. However, the mandatory and automatic registration of FIRs can be ensured only through egovernance, that is, by providing for online registration of FIRs by citizens. Tracking network The online registration of FIRs was supposed to be implemented by 2013. On March 21, 2012, the then Union Home Minister, P. Chidambaram, stated in the Rajya

Sabha that online registration of FIRs would be possible once the server and network connectivity was established by the end of 2012 or early 2013. However, the online filing of FIRs will be made possible only upon the implementation of the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS), an ambitious Rs. 2,000 crore project of the Home Ministry, aimed at increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of policing through e-governance by creating a state-of-the-art ITenabled crime tracking system for investigation of crime and detection of criminals. Under CCTNS, 14,000 police stations will be automated as well as 6,000 offices of higher police

officials. The CCTNS is a platform for sharing real time information by law-enforcement agencies, which will improve identification of criminals and crime investigation. Funds in the amount of Rs. 418 crore have reportedly been released to the States/Union Territories and Rs. 4.54 lakh people have been trained. The CCTNS project was supposed to be completed in March 31, 2012. However, in June 2012, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) extended the deadline to March 2015. In November 2012, the Home Ministry began monitoring the status of the CCTNS project on a weekly basis and appointed 20 Joint Secretaries to monitor the

progress of the project and ensure completion by March 2015. The delay in project implementation was reportedly due to the nonavailability of common application software (CAS) and infrastructure problems. Since law and order is a State issue, issues of coordination between the States also contributed to the delay. However, it is unclear why the Indian government needs to implement a Rs.2,000 crore project before enabling online filing of FIRs. In view of the great national imperative in creating deterrence against rape, websites and e-filing mechanisms should be immediately created to permit efiling of FIRs at least in rape cases.

The online filing of annual accounts and other documents was successfully implemented several years ago by the Ministry of Company Affairs. Various State governments have also provided for online filing of police complaints and online payment of traffic challans. The Himachal Pradesh Police have introduced an interactive portal called Kanoon Vyavastha, the first of its kind in the country, by which a police complaint can be filed online or by SMS. As per a report in the Financial Express , of 1,821 SMSs received, 22 FIRs were registered without the complainant having to visit the police station. Of these 22 FIRs, reportedly only one was related to a rape case. After the launch of SMS service in May

2010, 4,392 SMSs were received, of which 82 FIRs were registered. The complainant can check the status of the FIR online and post comments. The web portal is used for daily crime reporting, providing details of missing persons and vehicles and road accidents. Jalandhar reportedly has an online crime tip page where people can anonymously inform the police of a crime that has been committed. Similarly, Maharashtra has an e-complaint system for reporting minor crimes, that is, non-cognisable offences. Simultaneously, with the introduction of Zero FIRs, online filing of FIRs at least in rape cases should immediately be implemented irrespective of the

status of the CCTNS project. The introduction of e-FIRs will be an important signal to all criminals that rape will not go unpunished. January 23, 2013 United against the terrorist threat Practice Test For MAT - Free Online Mock MAT Test Papers. Get Instant Results, Start Now! HTCampus.com/Online-MockMAT-Test OUSMANE TANDIA FRANOIS RICHIER

Since January 11, the French and Malian armed forces have been engaged together in a military operation to halt armed terrorist groups. They were threatening the whole of Mali. France and Mali

shared the conviction that this was a matter of utmost emergency. As terrorism is a global threat, and India also a victim of terrorism, we wish to explain to our Indian friends the urgent challenges at stake in Mali and the international legal and political framework of this military operation. Necessity to act The situation in Mali was increasingly dangerous. Terrorist groups setting up in northern Mali have been destabilising the country, brutalising and killing civilians and destroying invaluable cultural heritage. Malis integrity was at stake. The stability of the

entire Sahelian region and beyond was threatened. The security of Europe as well. The terrorist groups have launched a southward attack early January, involving hundreds of armed militants. They had realised that time was running out for them. Last December, the adoption of U.N. Security Council Resolution 2085, with the help of our Indian partner, authorised an African-led International Support Mission to Mali, or Afisma. Terrorists tried to take advantage of the delay before its full deployment. Their objective was to seize new strategic positions by force and trigger the collapse of the whole country to establish a stronghold. By getting closer to

the Malian capital city, Bamako, they were planning to make it almost impossible to roll them back. The terrorists had to be stopped without delay. This first action was a precondition for allowing the second step, i.e. the swift deployment of the Afisma. The French deployment is not a substitute to the African force. The final aim is to restore Malis territorial integrity, and address the situation within a comprehensive framework, including the political and developmental dimensions. Frances intervention falls strictly within international law: it responded to a formal request by

the Malian President. It is being conducted in accordance with the U.N. Charter and the resolutions of the Security Council. In a letter sent to French President Franois Hollande, Malian President Dioncounda Traor, warmly and sincerely thanked the French people for their timely support on behalf of the Malian people. Rooted in international strategy Our joint action has received strong international political backing. Meeting in New York on January 14, all the members of the Security Council expressed their support to this intervention. The U.N. Secretary General, Ban Kimoon, confirmed the United Nations full support. Mali and

France have already been able to count on many international partners support, notably from the African Union and the Ecowas, which is the West African subregional organisation. Several countries have committed military support, such as the United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium, Denmark, the United States, Canada, with others, such as Russia, to follow. Resolve to fight terrorism Preparations are being stepped up for the deployment of a West African force. Benin, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria and Togo have prepositioned their contingents for urgent deployment. Cte dIvoire, Ghana, Liberia, Senegal

and Sierra Leone will also contribute to the deployment of Afisma. Non-Ecowas African countries will also participate, such as Chad, who has pledged to deploy troops in support of the Afisma operations. The objective is to deploy Afisma as soon as possible. The military command is already being deployed to Bamako and troop deployment has started, with Benin, Nigerian and Togolese contingents. The Ecowas summit just held in Abidjan (Cte dIvoire) has reiterated the African resolve to act and called for more support. A donors conference will take place in Addis Ababa at the end of January on the occasion of the African Union summit. The European Union (EU) has decided last Thursday to establish a

training mission in Mali (EUTM Mali) that will help the Malian Armed Forces to improve their military capacity. The EU is also providing significant financial support: it has allocated over 660 million to the Sahel region and, in the framework of the Strategy for Development and Security in the Sahel adopted in 2011, the EU has further mobilised additional financial resources for projects worth 167 million. The operation is under way and is going on satisfactorily 2,900 French troops are already engaged alongside of the Malian Army. It will last as long as necessary. Terrorist groups can be sure of our resolve: air strikes are conducted by French Rafale and

Mirage aircrafts every day, with Malian as well as French troops fighting on the ground. Several cities have already been liberated. This joint operation highlights the trust and friendship between Mali and France and our common dedication to fighting terrorism. Algerian incident Terrorism is one of the most serious threats to international security. We know what sort of barbaric acts the terrorist groups in Mali are committing. We know what their objectives are. We will not let them achieve them. We are grateful for the overwhelming international support we are receiving since the beginning of our operation. It shows that the

international community is united in fighting a threat which is characterised by global links and interaction between individuals and groups, wherever they are. The brutal large-scale terrorist attack in the south of Algeria which has just taken place proves it once again. A large number of foreign nationals working on the site have been murdered. Confronted with what can only be described as an act of war, the Algerian authorities had no other choice but to act swiftly. There should be no respite in our fight against terrorism. By combating alongside the Malian armed forces, and in the framework of international law,

France is shouldering her international responsibilities and fulfilling her international obligations. India, by voting in favour of Resolutions 2056, 2071 and 2085 in the U.N. Security Council, has showed her deep sense of international responsibility. In the ongoing fight against terrorism in Mali, France and Mali know that they can rely on the full understanding and solidarity of Indians, who have already borne the brunt of heinous terrorist acts. January 23, 2013 Making laws work for rape victims Online IAS Preparation - Complete Material,250 Unit Tests 16 All India Tests with analysis www.byjusclasses.com

JONATHAN DERBY

LOOKING FORWARD:Long-term strategies should focus on changing the culture of the criminal justice system so that it is victim friendly and implements the law. The picture is of a candlelight vigil in Delhi that was stopped by the police. PHOTO: AP Today, the Justice Verma Committee is scheduled to release recommendations on ways to strengthen governments response to crimes of aggravated sexual assault. There has been a lot of noise in the media calling for harsher punishment for rapists. The demands have only grown louder as details from the barbaric

events of the December 16 gang rape and murder in Delhi come to light. While cries for chemical castration and even death for rapists stem from the brutality of the crime, they do not address the root problem: the criminal justice system does not function the way it is meant to function. In fact, the publics frustration points to a decay of trust in the governments ability to deliver justice and protect its people. There have also been quieter, more reasonable voices in the media calling for a stronger, more sensitive, criminal justice system: one that delivers justice swiftly, gives rightful convictions and treats victims with dignity and compassion. While the

substantive and procedural rape law is far from perfect, societys frustration is not based on the inadequacy of the law, but on effective implementation of the law. The law and reality In fact, statutory law and Supreme Court and High Court judgments have established a solid legal framework that protects rape victims and requires government authorities to follow victimfriendly procedures. Protections under this legal framework include requiring lawyers and social workers for victims at the police station and for police to take statements in a setting that makes the victim comfortable. At

government hospitals, there should be special rooms to examine rape victims, equipped with medical kits that doctors should use to examine the victim and collect crucial evidence. When the victim testifies at trial vital evidence needed for getting a conviction it should take place in the judges chambers rather than in open court, and whenever possible, before a woman judge. For children, there are even greater protections and accommodations, many of which have been codified in the recently enacted Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012. Unfortunately, there is a gap between this legal framework and practice on the ground.

Collaboration works Of course, the success of any system comes down to the people who work within the system. The great majority of publicity about people who work within the criminal justice system, especially law enforcement officials, has been negative. Maybe the negative publicity is justified and brings needed attention to problems. But constant antagonism is counterproductive; it drowns out the good work countless police officials do every day. Good people dedicated to public service who work long hours for low pay without adequate training and resources. Yes, there are government officials police officials, medical

practitioners, public prosecutors and judges who must change their attitudes and do their jobs better. At the same time, it is only human nature that if someone consistently hears negative criticism, they tend to become discouraged and desensitised to the feedback. Either they will sink to the level people expect of them or they will stubbornly refuse to raise their professional standards. There is a better approach that builds positive energy: civil society collaborating with government to strengthen the criminal justice system. Long-term strategies should focus on changing the culture of the criminal justice system so that it is victim friendly and implements

the law. But improving performance immediately merely requires government authorities to follow the law already in place. A mechanism needs to hold government authorities accountable when they do not implement the law, regardless of the reason: whether because they are uninformed, do not have a clear understanding of the law, or it is inconvenient to follow. An effective way to hold government authorities accountable is to have a team comprising a lawyer and social worker, trained to handle cases of sexual violence, advocate for the victims interests at the police station till judgment. The team would work on the ground,

advising on the law, supporting the victim and monitoring progress of cases. At first they will likely need to confront officials when the law is not implemented. But their broader approach would be one of a spirit of collaboration and cooperation. In Delhi In Delhi, the Rape Crisis Cell under the Delhi Commission for Women partners with non-governmental organisations to provide legal and social support to rape victims. The Delhi Commission for Womens lawyers start providing oversight only at the trial stage. Still, the National Crime Records Bureau reports that in 2011, Delhi NCT had a 41.5 per cent conviction

rate in rape cases compared to the 26.4 per cent national conviction rate. In both examples, conviction rates are higher This programme is a good model that provides advocates who represent the victims interests, while collaborating with government authorities to strengthen the criminal justice system. When government authorities collaborate with civil society groups, the criminal justice system functions more effectively: government authorities are more likely to follow victim-friendly procedures, investigations and trials will move more swiftly and conviction rates will rise. When this happens, potential perpetrators will think twice

before they aggressively harass women. Women and their families will have greater confidence to report sexual abuse; and societys faith will steadily grow in the system meant to provide security and protect them. (Jonathan Derby is a U.S. licensed attorney who has extensiv January 23, 2013 Decoding Manmohan Singhs red lines Online IAS Preparation - Complete Material,250 Unit Tests 16 All India Tests with analysis www.byjusclasses.com SANJAYA BARU

Many eyebrows were raised in Delhi and around the world when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asserted that it cannot be business as usual with Pakistan after the recent incident on the Line of Control (LoC). Merely because these remarks came after the National Security Adviser briefed Opposition leaders about the governments approach to the issue, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha took credit for the Prime Ministers tough stance, while welcoming it. That Dr. Singh adopted a more nuanced approach and not the sledge-hammer response that the Bharatiya Janata Party and hotheads in the media had sought has since become clear.

Uncharacteristic toughness The many expressions of surprise, accompanied by gratuitous remarks about Dr. Singhs uncharacteristic toughness, ignore the fact that on vital national security and foreign policy issues, the Prime Minister has always drawn red lines and stuck to them. These red lines have been drawn both with respect to political parties and ministerial colleagues at home and foreign governments. When it comes to foreign policy, Dr. Singh has jealously guarded Prime Ministerial turf and defended the national interest. In Indias federal, parliamentary, cabinet form and now coalitional

government system, foreign policy remains, as it always has been, the prerogative of the Prime Minister alone. Fully appreciative of the limits within which a Prime Minister could function in the kind of set-up that he had inherited, Dr. Singh was quick to draw red lines at home, as his first Foreign Minister, Natwar Singh, discovered early during his term in office. On occasions when Dr. Singh has had to yield space to his critics, both within and outside the government, he has either stooped to conquer or stepped back to once again sally forth. And, when he has been unable to achieve his objective with either strategy, Dr. Singh has imposed a

cost on his critics and adversaries. He has, however, rarely given up pursuing a stated objective. One can give several examples in support of this assertion. The most dramatic event occurred when the Left Front government informed the Centre that it would not be able to ensure law and order at the Kalaikunda air force base where a group of CPI(M) protesters had planned to gather to disrupt joint air exercises between the Indian Air Force and the United States Air Force. Reminding Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharya that no State government can prevent the Centre from conducting defence and foreign policy, Dr. Singh threatened to impose Presidents

rule in West Bengal if the State government failed to discharge its constitutional responsibility of maintaining law and order, especially near a defence installation. Not only did Mr. Bhattacharya fall in line, the CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat called on Dr. Singh and gave his personal assurance that there would be no disruption of the exercises. More recently, there was a comment that the same Dr. Singh failed to impose similar discipline on West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee when she blocked a bilateral agreement between India and Bangladesh on Teesta river water sharing. Here too the fact remains that

eventually the government of India was able to implement a large part of the understanding with Bangladesh, but Dr. Singh also ensured, over time, that the Trinamool Congress had to pay a price and was ejected from the United Progressive Alliance, much like the Left Front. In both cases, the message was that State governments cannot cross certain red lines on matters of national security and foreign policy. One can give several other examples where Dr. Singh may have initially stepped back in the face of opposition at home but eventually walked the talk. Faced with criticism at home, even from his own party, for the famous India-Pakistan joint statement at

Sharm-el-Shaikh, in July 2009, Dr. Singh not only defended his initiative twice in a month in Parliament but also continued his dialogue with his Pakistani counterpart. The last word Indeed, even when UPA chairperson and Congress president Sonia Gandhi wrote an ill-advised letter to Dr. Singh expressing concern about the India-Asean free trade agreement, Dr. Singh chose to stand his ground. When her letter was leaked to the media by a party functionary, Dr. Singh did not mind his reply being released to the media. The message once again was that on matters of

national security and foreign policy, the Prime Minister would have the last word. Externally also, Dr. Singh has not shied away from drawing red lines. When President Barack Obama sought to send Richard Holbrooke to India as a special envoy to discuss Kashmir, the U.S. was told in no uncertain terms that Mr. Holbrooke would not be welcome. On another occasion, when the Chinese government publicly warned India against permitting the Dalai Lamas visit to Arunachal Pradesh, Dr. Singh made bold to let China know that it cannot dictate which part of India the Dalai Lama can or cannot travel

to. A similar red line was drawn on the issue of the attendance of the Indian ambassador at the ceremony where a Chinese dissident was to be awarded the Nobel Peace prize and on China stamping its version of Indias map on Indian passports. Any analyst of foreign affairs can list several such examples, based on media reports, where Dr. Singh has jealously guarded prime ministerial turf and the national interest in the conduct of foreign and defence policy. It is understandable that this toughness is not always evident in the handling of domestic political issues. But then, over the past two decades, successive Indian Prime

Ministers, including Atal Bihari Vajpayee, had discovered the limits to their political power at home given the nature of coalition politics. While many of Dr. Singhs critics imagine that he pursued the civil nuclear energy agreement with the U.S. in the face of Left Front opposition because he was being adamant, or soft on the U.S. and so on, an important reason, apart from his conviction about the merits of the agreement itself, was his resolve not to allow domestic politics to limit prime ministerial prerogative in the conduct of foreign policy and national security.

As he then famously asked his own partys leaders, which head of government would take the Indian Prime Ministers word seriously in any international negotiation if he cannot stick to that word. With Pakistan, Dr. Singh has adequately demonstrated his ability to overcome domestic opposition to his peace initiatives. If the Pervez MusharrafManmohan Singh dialogue reached a dead end it was not for want of resolve on Dr. Singhs part. Rather, it was because of the turn that the domestic situation in Pakistan had taken in 2007. Despite the November 2008 attack in Mumbai, Dr. Singh has shown consistency and

determination in taking dialogue process forward.

the

But, even Pakistan has to respect Dr. Singhs red lines, just as President Obama and President Hu Jintao were required to. That thinking appears to have triggered the no business as usual remark and it has had the intended impact. January 24, 2013 Wealth does not lead to worldclass institutions SRM University- India No1 Admissions for 2013 SRM Engineering - Download or Apply Online Now! www.srmuniv.ac.in/applications PUSHKAR

There is little to disagree with many of the observations made by Ajay Gudavarthy and Nissim Mannathukkaren in their article Comparing Harvard apples with JNU oranges ( The Hindu , Op-Ed, December 27, 2012) that: world rankings of universities do not give us an accurate picture of higher education in India and elsewhere, an overwhelming majority of top200 universities are in rich countries and that the solution does not lie in emulating Western models. They are right in asserting that there are different ways to evaluate higher education institutions. They mention intangible features such as

access to education and give the example of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) as an institution which has served this cause for students from backward regions. Caste-based reservations in our institutions have served a similar purpose. At the same time, they concede that representation has come about at the cost of quality. However, they evade or downplay several troubling issues and take up somewhat frivolous ones. Let me begin with their complaints about the problems and unfairness of the U.S. higher education system. They lament the commercialisation of education and growing student indebtedness in the U.S. First, it is not our problem. Second, India

has done very well in commercialising higher education without emulating the U.S. model. They claim that American students are not trained to become critical thinkers but foot soldiers of the establishment. Agreed. Now how about asking this: what are we training our students to become? Issue of context Their biggest omission is context. They mention different material realities and different starting points of different countries but do not consider the same for India. It is certainly true that 21st century India is still a poor country whether we use the Third World

label or some other. At the same time, India, like China, is not just another poor country. It is certainly not Somalia (not my example) even though in parts of the country, people live in worse than Somalia-like conditions. The country has witnessed high rates of economic growth for over three decades so that it now counts among the largest economies in the world. At least some of that growth has occurred due to the countrys ability to tap into the global knowledge economy. The country and its peoples have also become more connected to the outside world whether through trade, travel, technology or other means over the past two-three decades. India has the worlds largest pool of college-age young

women and men, and more women are taking to higher education. The country loses immense amounts of foreign exchange as thousands of affluent and meritorious students head abroad each year and far too few of the meritorious ones return. It makes little sense to discuss higher education in India within the old frameworks of rich, poor or Third World countries. China and India belong to a different category of nations not just because they are growing economies but because they are large and populous. They are rich and poor, developed and underdeveloped, modern and traditional and everything else in between in different ways. They

are countries that have arrived as global players or will do so in the coming future. Clearly, they are quite different from other lowand middle-income countries. Given this context, the higher education sector has immense relevance and issues of quality and comparison of Indias institutions with those in rich countries is more than a matter of time pass. Further, substantial improvements in the quality of higher education are necessary for Indias economic growth and further development in ways that are both interdependent and less dependent on rich countries. It is only with a solid base of higher education that India will be able to design and develop more of its

own technologies and prioritise invention and innovation to move forward. Then and now Indias higher education needs to aim much higher than a typical poor country. If global comparisons are not fair, other measures of quality independent of governmentcreated evaluation bodies or the print media need to be devised. If it is not fair to compare Indias universities with those in rich countries, how about comparing them with what they were like two or three decades ago? Have the same universities become better over time?

Other than providing access to higher education, have there been improvements in their quality? If the majority of engineering colleges or management schools are as bad as employers say they are, why not rank them in comparison to our own leading institutions, whether JNU or others? If one takes their reasoning that vast disparities in wealth between the West and the rest explains why third-rate institutions are found in poor countries to its logical conclusion, India must wait to get rich before dreaming to build world-ranked institutions. This reasoning flies against the commonsense view that a larger

number of world-class institutions, whether ranked globally or not, can contribute enormously to Indias economic growth and dynamism in the coming decades. Instead, Gudavarthy and Mannathukkaren apply a version of the age-old modernisation theory which posited a positive link between wealth and democracy to higher education: that wealth leads to the creation of world-ranked institutions. Wealth has not brought democracy or world-class universities to oil-rich Middle Eastern countries. Arguably, precisely because these countries are not democratic, it is unlikely that their universities will ever, with or without the help of NYU or American University, reach the

heights of western universities.January 24, 2013 A hidden property empire grown with Mussolinis millions Investment Plans - Invest Rs 8300 pm and get Rs 1.35Cr guaranteed in return.Compare quotes PolicyBazaar.com/PureInvestment DAVID LEIGH JEAN FRANCOIS TANDA

NO COMMENT:The surprising aspect for some will be the lengths to which the Vatican (right) has gone to preserve secrecy about the money. (Left) A 1936 picture of Benito Mussolini during the 2,698th anniversary of the birth of Rome. PHOTOS: REUTERS, AP

Few passing London tourists would ever guess that the premises of Bulgari, the upmarket jewellers in New Bond Street, had anything to do with the pope. Nor the nearby headquarters of the wealthy investment bank Altium Capital, on the corner of St Jamess Square and Pall Mall. But these office blocks in one of Londons most expensive districts are part of a surprising secret commercial property empire owned by the Vatican. Behind a disguised offshore company structure, the churchs international portfolio has been built up over the years, using cash originally handed over by

Mussolini in return for papal recognition of the Italian fascist regime in 1929. Since then the international value of Mussolinis nest egg has mounted until it now exceeds 500m. In 2006, at the height of the recent property bubble, the Vatican spent 15m of those funds to buy 30 St. Jamess Square. Other U.K. properties are at 168 New Bond Street and in the city of Coventry. It also owns blocks of flats in Paris and Switzerland. Letters, files, archives The surprising aspect for some will be the lengths to which the Vatican has gone to preserve

secrecy about the Mussolini millions. The St. Jamess Square office block was bought by a company called British Grolux Investments Ltd, which also holds the other U.K. properties. Published registers at Companies House do not disclose the companys true ownership, nor make any mention of the Vatican. Instead, they list two nominee shareholders, both prominent Catholic bankers: John Varley, recently chief executive of Barclays Bank, and Robin Herbert, formerly of the Leopold Joseph merchant bank. Letters were sent from The Guardian to each of them asking whom they act for. They went unanswered. British company law allows the true

beneficial ownership of companies to be concealed behind nominees in this way. The company secretary, John Jenkins, a Reading accountant, was equally uninformative. He told us the firm was owned by a trust but refused to identify it on grounds of confidentiality. He told us after taking instructions: I confirm that I am not authorised by my client to provide any information. Research in old archives, however, reveals more of the truth. Companies House files disclose that British Grolux Investments inherited its entire property portfolio after a reorganisation in 1999 from two predecessor companies called British Grolux Ltd and

Cheylesmore Estates. The shares of those firms were in turn held by a company based at the address of the JP Morgan bank in New York. Ultimate control is recorded as being exercised by a Swiss company, Profima SA. British wartime records from the National Archives in Kew complete the picture. They confirm Profima SA as the Vaticans own holding company, accused at the time of engaging in activities contrary to Allied interests. Files from officials at Britains Ministry of Economic Warfare at the end of the war criticised the popes financier, Bernardino Nogara, who controlled the investment of more than 50m cash from the Mussolini windfall.

Nogaras shady activities were detailed in intercepted 1945 cable traffic from the Vatican to a contact in Geneva, according to the British, who discussed whether to blacklist Profima as a result. Nogara, a Roman lawyer, is the Vatican financial agent and Profima SA in Lausanne is the Swiss holding company for certain Vatican interests. They believed Nogara was trying to transfer shares of two Vatican-owned French property firms to the Swiss company, to prevent the French government blacklisting them as enemy assets. Earlier in the war, in 1943, the British accused Nogara of similar dirty work, by shifting Italian

bank shares into Profimas hands in order to whitewash them and present the bank as being controlled by Swiss neutrals. This was described as manipulation of Vatican finances to serve extraneous political ends. Where it is controlled The Mussolini money was dramatically important to the Vaticans finances. John Pollard, a Cambridge historian, says in Money and the Rise of the Modern Papacy : The papacy was now financially secure. It would never be poor again. From the outset, Nogara was innovative in investing the cash. In 1931, records show he founded an offshore company in Luxembourg

to hold the continental European property assets he was buying. It was called Groupement Financier Luxembourgeois, hence Grolux. Luxembourg was one of the first countries to set up tax-haven company structures in 1929. The U.K. end, called British Grolux, was incorporated the following year. When war broke out, with the prospect of a German invasion, the Luxembourg operation and ostensible control of the British Grolux operation were moved to the U.S. and to neutral Switzerland. The Mussolini investments in Britain are currently controlled, along with its other European holdings and a currency trading arm, by a papal official in Rome,

Paolo Mennini, who is in effect the popes merchant banker. Mennini heads a special unit inside the Vatican called the extraordinary division of APSA Amministrazione del Patrimonio della Sede Apostolica which handles the so-called patrimony of the Holy See. According to a report last year from the Council of Europe, which surveyed the Vaticans financial controls, the assets of Menninis special unit now exceed 680m (570m). While secrecy about the Fascist origins of the papacys wealth might have been understandable in wartime, what is less clear is why the Vatican continued to

maintain secrecy about its holdings in Britain, even after its financial structure was reorganised in 1999. The Guardian asked the Vaticans representative in London, the papal nuncio, archbishop Antonio Mennini, why the papacy continued with such secrecy over the identity of its property investments in London. We also asked what the pope spent the income on. True to its tradition of silence on the subject, the Roman Catholic churchs spokesman said that the nuncio had no comment. Guardian NJanuary 24, 2013 Manmohan Singhs abject surrender Best Health Insuranc Plan - Get 5 Lac Health Cover For Family with

Tax Benefits & Cashless Claims Mediclaimindia.co.in A.G. NOORANI

We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality. Macaulays words aptly describe the fits of chauvinism that seize Indians. But this time it has exacted a toll of consequence, the result of a pathetic surrender by a man of vision. On January 6, a Pakistani soldier was killed and another critically injured, across the Line of Control in Kashmir. Two days later, two Indian soldiers were killed across the LoC; one was beheaded, the

others body was mutilated. On January 9, a senior intelligence official told DNA , we believe that this was a local action purely in retaliation of (sic) what the raid out troops carried out in the Uri Sector. The next day came Praveen Swamis revealing expos in this paper, followed by disclosures of beheadings by Indian troops in the past. The 12 days By its very nature, that crime is a product of local rage. It should have been settled at the level of brigadiers. As Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid said on January 16: Its something that is within the domain of the armed forces of both sides If it is contained at

their own level, then it doesnt create a larger political issue at the higher level. The DirectorsGeneral of Military Operations were not asked to contain the crisis when they met on January 9. Each said his piece. On January 18, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said, We want *a+ good relationship with Pakistan but not at the cost of our national honour and our national interest. Whatever happened during those 12 days to prompt this astounding assertion by a level-headed PM? On January 9, Pakistan Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar made a fair proposal. Both countries should investigate the incidents and assist each other, if necessary. This implied parity in sin and

parity is anathema to us. Her suggestion of a probe by U.N. observers was a non-starter. But unilateral probes by each side, followed by a joint discussion, would have eased the tension. In Paris, as late as January 12, Salman Khurshid told The Hindu We think this will pass. But New Delhi had other ideas. The IAF Chief Air Chief Marshal N.A.K. Browne said the same day we may have to look at some other options for compliance. Two days later, Army Chief General Bikram Singh declared that India reserves the right to retaliate at the time and place of its choice and I expect all my commanders to be aggressive and offensive to any situation bad advice in a tense situation. Such threats are

proper only if the killing was deliberate and was ordered at a governmental level. This was the gloss India chose to put on a local incident to which both sides surely contributed. The decision to up the ante was taken on January 14 at a hurriedly called meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security. The BJP made the most of it. Sushma Swaraj asked for 10 heads against one. Yashwant Sinha said you cannot have peace with Pakistan. The Prime Minister fell in line on January 15. After this barbaric act, there cannot be business as usual *with Pakistan+. The same day, the visa-on-arrival facility was

put on hold and Pakistans hockey stars were sent home. The BJP was not appeased. To Ms Swaraj, the PMs remarks were an echo of the tough measures we have demanded. Arun Jaitley said on January 15: The fact that it has taken so long for the PM to react makes me wonder if todays reaction is out of conviction or out of compulsion. I hope this marks the burial of the Sharm-el-Shaikh line that the peace process should not be held hostage to the issue of terrorism. Having drawn blood, the BJP will move for the final kill of the peace process. From 2004, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L.K. Advani kept attacking Dr. Singh for every

conciliatory move while asking Pakistan privately not to settle with the UPA. The BJP had better offers. India now offered surrender terms: end the brazen denial and bring the perpetrators to book. This renders retreat very difficult, though its signs have appeared. The BJP will surely call it a surrender. Ms Khars offer of talks, on January 16, would, as Mr. Khurshid had envisaged, raise the dialogue to the political level in view of the impasse in the DGMO talks discuss all concerns related to LoC with a view to reinforcing respect for the ceasefire. The offer was not accepted.

It is sad that the Prime Minister should have allowed himself to be blown off course in these last few months. He had a noble vision. The four-point formula on Kashmir he had crafted with Pervez Musharraf satisfied the interests of all sides no secession, no permanence to the LoC and selfrule to Kashmiris without any violation of territorial integrity. All this has been foiled; not least by his own hesitations and failure to talk to the people and explain his vision. He abandoned a course that might have brought peace to this sub-continent by a settlement of Kashmir. Now it is a tragic legacy of failure, caused wantonly by self-inflicted wounds that this

man of vision will bequeath in 2014. No leader should permit incidents to deflect him from his course. At 2.45 a.m. on October 12, 1984, a bomb went off which wrecked most of Brightons Grand Hotel where Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was staying for the Conservative Party Conference. Dozens, including a Minister, were injured. An MP and four others were killed. The IRA warned her, Today we were unlucky, but remember we only have to be lucky once. She did not stop the MI5 from continuing the talks with the IRA. However, it was not to the BJP that the Prime Minister

surrendered. He did so to the clamour whipped up by the electronic media. The BJP wrode piggy-back on that clamour. The resume of events from January 6 to 18 should be read in the light of the venom poured by television news anchors night after night. This raises in an acute form the issue of media influence on diplomacy. A former British Foreign Secretary, Douglas Hurd, noted: Like it or not, television images are what force foreign policymakers to give one of the current 25 crises in the world greater priority. William Pfaff, a thoughtful commentator, agrees: Foreign policy now is made chiefly in terms of its reception by television and the press. But the only useful debates are those that

start out with a clear agreement on what the argument is about the precise issues and in which the opponents arguments and persons are paid respect. This is altogether absent in the debates on our channels. Ignorant anchors The anchors themselves enter the fray, ridicule those with whom they disagree, show deference to retirees from the IB, RAW and the army, and treat Pakistanis with scant courtesy. They themselves are none too competent. An anchor of a leading channel said in Ladakh, behind me lies the McMahon Line. Another goes to the university in Srinagar and polls students on camera. When almost

all said they were for azadi , he replied: That is a subjective view. His ignorance of the feelings there exposed. Eric Louw remarks in his book The Media and Political Press that most journalists are ill-equipped to read foreign contexts and so can be easily led by both overseas spin-doctors and domestic foreign policy bureaucrats and experts and TRPs. Public opinion can veto policy, fanned by TV it can ruin it. Lippmann remarked, mass opinion has shown itself to be a dangerous master of decisions when the stakes are life and death. He lamented that the work of reporters has become

confused with the work of preachers, revivalists, prophets and agitators jingoism became a criterion for *the+ presentation of news. He touched the core of the problem when he wrote in an exact sense the present crisis of western democracy is a crisis of journalism. The task of the leader is to educate people about the facts of political life. He cannot shirk his duty. Abba Eban struck a fair balance. It is unrealistic to expect political leaders to ignore public opinion. But a statesman who keeps his ear permanently glued to the ground will have neither elegance of posture nor flexibility of moment.

(A.G. Noorani is a lawyer, author and commentator. His latest book, Article 370: A Constitutional History of Jammu and Kashmir , was published by Oxford University Press in 2011.) January 25, 2013 Blow the whistle and face the music SRM University- India No1 Admissions for 2013 SRM Engineering Download or Apply Online Now! www.srmuniv.ac.in/applications ANJALI MODY

STRIKING BACK:The levels of repression are higher and the forms they take are harsher where the challenge posed is greater.

The picture is of journalist Naveen Soorinje in a jail ward in a Mangalore hospital. PHOTO: H.S. MANJUNATH In May 2012 three women in Mangalore, stopped the Deputy Commissioner as he walked to his car, to ask why he had not inspected a site where the Mangalore SEZ Ltd. was dumping mud into a river in an alleged violation of coastal regulation norms. They were arrested and jailed. The charges against them: unlawful assembly, rioting, wrongful restraint, assault, etc., etc.. These arrests are just one example of the states casual use of fabricated FIRs and chargesheets as tools to harass,

intimidate or silence those who work to hold it to account. Such cases seem slight, almost unworthy of comment, when compared with fabricated cases of terror or sedition that are (apart from extra-judicial killing) the most extreme form that state impunity takes. But, by treating these every day examples of the states exercise of impunity as insignificant we ignore systemic subversion and the normalisation of illegality as legality. As the Mangalore case shows, the state does not need the excuse of an armed insurgency or the threat of terrorism to curtail constitutional freedoms or undermine democratic accountability.

Halting SEZ expansion One of the three women arrested in Mangalore, Vidya Dinker, is a civic rights activist who campaigned against unregulated development in Mangalore city and violations of the coastal regulation zone (CRZ). She also played an important part in the campaign to halt land acquisition for the Mangalore SEZ expansion. Like others from the anti-SEZ campaign, which ended successfully last year, she has spent the best part of four years, and scarce resources, fighting myriad court cases, stemming from fabricated complaints by government officials and the SEZ

developers. Now she and her fellow campaigners have one more. Several old cases have concluded, with acquittals for all those charged. In each instance, the prosecutions case has fallen apart in court as the fiction it was based on unravelled. In some cases, government officials lied under oath to try and make their cases stick. Wilfully lying under oath is perjury. But, it seems not when the state is the accuser. We are told that once a case is admitted in court, the law must take its course and courts deliver even-handed justice. However,

when courts repeatedly admit cases based on false premises, then what is delivered cannot amount to justice. As cases process at a glacial pace through the layers of the judiciary we dare not say so, for we may be held in contempt of court, a misdemeanour also punishable with a jail sentence. So, we stay silent, which is the intention of this process. It suits everyone, except those who advocate democratic accountability. Social, political and environmental activists and trade unionists being charged with rioting, attempt to murder, etc., when nothing approximating these charges has occurred, is par for the course. It

is not so common for journalists to be targeted in this manner. Vigilante-attacks in Mangalore Yet, since November 7, Naveen Soorinje, a reporter with the Kasthuri Channel, has been in jail in Mangalore, denied bail. His eyewitness report in July last year of a brutal vigilante attack on a group of young people at a private birthday celebration, led to arrests and charges being filed. The incontrovertible visual evidence that supported Mr. Soorinjes report, and was broadcast nationally, made the filing of charges possible. Instead of enlisting him as a witness, the police named Mr. Soorinje as one

of the accused, along with the attackers. Vigilante-attacks, usually by Sangh Parivar organisations, on mixed groups of young people and couples are common in Dakshina Kannada. According to a recent Peoples Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) report on communal policing in Dakshina Kannada there have been 140-recorded instances of such attacks in the district since 2007. Until the July 2012 attack, no one had ever been charged. In several earlier instances, the police, legitimised the vigilante attacks, becoming enforcers not of the law, but of the narrow sectarian social code the

vigilantes espoused. After the attacks the victims were taken to police stations, where the police warned them not to socialise across religious lines and made them sign an undertaking to that effect. Naveen Soorinje reported these cases, first for a local newspaper and more recently, with wider impact, on TV. He also reported on the campaign to stop the expansion of the SEZ, the illegal land grab from the poorest by the SEZ developer, the harassment of resisters, the arbitrary powers of the religious Mutts in the district, and many other things that shone a light on the nexus of the powerful in Dakshin Kannada.

Why then is Naveen Soorinje in jail? Why are good citizens, concerned about violations of government norms, marking time in police stations and courts? Quite simply it is because of the unstated consensus between the political class, the bureaucracy, big business and, importantly, very many of us on the acceptability, even necessity, of employing repression as a means of maintaining the current balance of power. This consensus legitimises police impunity. It supports the use of coercive police powers legal or illegal to silence any dissent that challenges existing political, economic and social arrangements. The levels of

repression are higher and the forms they take are harsher where the challenge posed is greater. From Mangalore to Manipur, from Kundakulam to Kashmir, its the same story: if one questions its purpose, the state will respond not with reason, but with repression. The longer this goes on, the less we will be able to claim we live in a true democracy. The longer we remain silent, and hence part of the consensus that supports this system, the more we are implicated in these acts of impunity and the subversion of everything this country claims to stand for.January 25, 2013 A moment of triumph for women Rs1603Guest House Gurgaon Ph:09210333268, Cyber City 4

Sohna Guest Houses DLF 1 2 3 Udyog Vihar lotuspark.co.in/Guest-HouseGurgaon KALPANA KANNABIRAN

Starting with Tarabai Shindes spirited defence of the honour of her sister countrywomen in 1882, womens movements in India have been marked by persistent and protracted struggles. But despite this rich and varied history, we have in recent weeks found ourselves shocked at the decimation of decades of struggle. A transformation

At a time when despair and anger at the futility of hundreds of thousands of womens lifetimes spent in imagining a world that is safe drive us yet again to the streets; at a time when our daughters get assaulted in the most brutal ways and our sons learn that unimaginable brutality is the only way of becoming men; at a time when we wonder if all that intellectual and political work of crafting frameworks to understand womens subjugation and loss of liberty through sexual terrorism has remained imprisoned within the covers of books in womens studies libraries; at a time like this, what does it mean to suddenly find that all is not lost and to discover on a winter afternoon that our words

and work have cascaded out of our small radical spaces and transformed constitutional common sense? The Report of the Committee on Amendments to Criminal Law headed by Justice J.S. Verma is our moment of triumph the triumph of womens movements in this country. As with all triumphs, there are always some unrealised possibilities, but these do not detract from the fact of the victory. Rather than confining itself to criminal law relating to rape and sexual assault, the committee has comprehensively set out the constitutional framework within which sexual assault must be

located. Perhaps more importantly, it also draws out the political framework within which non-discrimination based on sex must be based and focuses on due diligence by the state in order to achieve this as part of its constitutional obligation, with the Preamble interpreted as inherently speaking to justice for women in every clause. If capabilities are crucial in order that people realise their full potential, this will be an unattainable goal for women till such time as the state is held accountable for demonstrating a commitment to this goal. Performance audits of all institutions of governance and law

and order are seen as an urgent need in this direction. The focus of the entire exercise is on protecting the right to dignity, autonomy and freedom of victims of sexual assault and rape with comprehensive reforms suggested in electoral laws, policing, criminal laws and the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958, and the provision of safe spaces for women and children. Arguing that cultural prejudices must yield to constitutional principles of equality, empathy and respect (p.55), the committee, in a reiteration of the Naaz Foundation judgment, brings sexual orientation firmly within the meaning of sex in Article 15,

and underscores the right to liberty, dignity and fundamental rights of all persons irrespective of sex or sexual orientation and the right of all persons, not just women, against sexual assault. Reviewing leading cases and echoing the critique of Indian womens groups and feminist legal scholars whether in the case of Mathura or even the use of the shame-honour paradigm that has trapped victim-survivors in rape trials and in khap panchayats , the committee observes: women have been looped into a vicious cycle of shame and honour as a consequence of which they have been attended with an inherent

disability to report crimes of sexual offences against them. In terms of the definition of rape, the committee recommends retaining a redefined offence of rape within a larger section on sexual assault in order to retain the focus on womens right to integrity, agency and bodily integrity. Rape is redefined as including all forms of nonconsensual penetration of sexual nature (p.111). The offence of sexual assault would include all forms of non-consensual, nonpenetrative touching of sexual nature. Tracing the history of the marital rape exception in the common law of coverture in England and Wales in the 1700s, the committee unequivocally

recommends the removal of the marital rape exception as vital to the recognition of womens right to autonomy and physical integrity irrespective of marriage or other intimate relationship. Marriage, by this argument, cannot be a valid defence, it is not relevant to the matter of consent and it cannot be a mitigating factor in sentencing in cases of rape. On the other hand, the committee recommended that the age of consent in consensual sex be kept at 16, and other legislation be suitably amended in this regard. Voices from conflict zones Rights advocates in Kashmir, the States of the North-East,

Chhattisgarh, Gujarat and other areas that have witnessed protracted conflict and communal violence have for decades been demanding that sexual violence by the armed forces, police and paramilitary as well as by collective assault by private actors be brought within the meaning of aggravated sexual assault. This has been taken on board with the committee recommending that such forms of sexual assault deserve to be treated as aggravated sexual assault in law (p. 220). Specifically, the committee recommends an amendment in Section 6 of the AFSPA, 1958, removing the requirement of prior sanction where the person has been accused of sexual assault.

Clearly a sensitive and committed police force is indispensable to the interests of justice. But how should this come about? There have been commissions that have recommended reforms, cases that have been fought and won, but impunity reigns supreme. If all the other recommendations of the Committee are carried through, will the government give even a nominal commitment that the chapter on police reforms will be read, leave alone acted on? The Delhi case The recent gang rape and death of a young student in Delhi has raised the discussion on the question of sentencing and

punishment yet again. The first set of questions had to do with the nature and quantum of punishment. Treading this issue with care, the committee enhances the minimum sentence from seven years to 10 years, with imprisonment for life as the maximum. On the death penalty, the committee has adopted the abolitionist position, in keeping with international standards of human rights, and rejected castration as an option. The second question had to do with the reduction of age in respect of juveniles. Despite the involvement of a juvenile in this incident, womens groups and child rights groups were united in their view that the age must not be lowered, that the solution did not lie in

locking them up young. Given the low rates of recidivism, the committee does not recommend the lowering of the age, recommending instead, comprehensive institutional reform in childrens institutions. The report contains comprehensive recommendations on amendments in existing criminal law, which cannot be detailed here except in spirit. The significance of the report lies, not so much in its immediate translation into law or its transformation of governance (although these are the most desirable and urgent), but in its pedagogic potential as providing a new basis for the teaching and learning of the

Constitution and criminal law and the centrality of gender to legal pedagogy. January 25, 2013 Alchemizing anger to hope SRM University- India No1 Admissions for 2013 SRM Engineering - Download or Apply Online Now! www.srmuniv.ac.in/applications ARVIND NARRAIN

ushering in change:The Verma Committee has performed a fine balancing act of being sensitive to opinion without allowing mere public sentiment to emerge as the arbiter of policy and law. PHOTO: RAJEEV BHATT

The aftermath of the brutal rape of the 23-year-old medical student in Delhi has witnessed a persistent degrading of the public discourse. Having been subjected to crudely offensive remarks by members of the political establishment, right from belittling a serious movement for equality as led by painted and dented ladies to ostensibly sympathetic responses which belittle women who have suffered a serious violation of their bodily integrity by describing them as nothing more than zinda laash (living corpses), we finally have a document authored by a committee set up by the state which honours the victim. The Verma Committee report most fundamentally alters the

public discourse on crimes against women by placing these crimes within the framework of the Indian Constitution and treating these offences as nothing less than an egregious violation of the right to live with dignity of all women. What is particularly moving and inspiring about the report is that it does so by placing the autonomy and indeed the sexual autonomy of women at the very centre of its discourse. It also offers us a rethinking of what is meant by the offence of rape. In the Committees thinking it is very important for Indian society and the state to move away from thinking of rape as a crime against honour and instead look at it as a serious violation of

bodily integrity. In language that is seen perhaps for the first time in an official report, the Committee quotes a rape survivor. Rape is horrible. But it is not horrible for all the reasons that have been drilled into the heads of Indian womenI reject the notion that my virtue is located in my vagina, just as I reject the notion that mens brains are in their genitals. The discussion on rape is located in an understanding of women as full and equal citizens and it is intrinsic to the argument of the report that it is only by guaranteeing women full and equal rights that sexual violence can even be tackled. It is in this context that the Committee

discusses the phenomenon of honour killing and concludes that it is the responsibility of the state to ensure that choices made by men and women in respect of marriage will not be interfered with by institutions such as khap panchayats . Breaching public patriarchy While the Committee breaches the inner wall of patriarchy, especially by bringing marital rape within the ambit of rape, it is also equally successful in breaching the public patriarchy of the state. For far too long, the security forces in India have enjoyed complete impunity for crimes of sexual violence committed against women in situations of armed

conflict. For the first time in history, the Committee has recognised that sexual violence against women committed by members of the armed forces must come within the purview of ordinary criminal law. The Committee also introduces the notion of command responsibility whereby a public servant in command, control or supervision of the armed forces or police would be held responsible for failure to exercise control over the actions of his subordinates resulting in rape or sexual assault. Here again the Committee breaches the code of impunity of the Indian state for sexual offences committed by its personnel.

It has shown a sense of occasion by recognising that a historic moment such as this must be transformative for all. As such, it expressly suggests that the definition of those who could be affected by sexual assault should include both men as well as homosexual and transgender persons. It thus recommends that the law expressly protect all persons from rape and sexual assault. Circle of empathy The jet of anger which emerged through the brutal rape in Delhi last month has through the work of the Committee been transmuted into an ever widening

circle of empathy which includes children in juvenile facilities, trafficked women and children, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender persons, domestic workers, women in situations of armed conflict as well as women in violent marital relationships. The Committee through making recommendations for all these vulnerable groups has seized the moment and underlined the patriarchal ills of the Indian state and society. The fact that the report is based upon a historic articulation of hurt and harm suffered by Indian women emerges most poignantly through the articulation of the offence of rape which results in a persistent vegetative state for

which the punishment is rigorous imprisonment of a minimum of 20 years going up to life. This recognition of an aggravated form of sexual assault is a tribute to Aruna Shanbaug, who was brutally raped and choked with a dog chain and is living in a persistent vegetative state for the past 36 years. The Committee has performed a fine balancing act of being sensitive to public opinion without allowing mere public sentiment to emerge as the arbiter of policy and law. In doing so, it resists the tendency of basing its recommendations on shifting notions of right and wrong and instead derives its

recommendations from constitutional morality.

It has done an incredible job of transmuting pain and anger into an inspirational road map for the future. It is now up to civil society to ensure that the radical recommendations of the Committee are converted into reality. January 26, 2013 Indias benign constitutional revolution Online IAS Preparation - Complete Material,250 Unit Tests 16 All India Tests with analysis www.byjusclasses.com SHIVPRASAD SWAMINATHAN

This is the story of how and why the framers of the Constitution of India deliberately designed a procedural error in the adoption of the new Constitution with a view to severing the seamless transition of legal authority from the British Crown-in-Parliament to the new Republic of India. The deliberate procedural error consisted in a deviation from the Constitution making procedure prescribed by the Indian Independence Act, 1947 the law enacted by the British Parliament granting India independence and formally authorising the Constituent Assembly to draft a Constitution for the newly liberated state. To be sure, the framers of the Constitution of India were not the

first, and indeed they were not the last to deliberately incorporate such procedural errors in the process of Constitution making. The founders of the Constitutions of several other states including Ireland, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Ghana, which were being liberated from the British Empire, took such a step. In doing so, they were all motivated by the same goal: that of ensuring constitutional autochthony. Constitutional autochthony The etymological roots of autochthony, which is not to be confused with autonomy, are to be found in the Greek autos (self) and chthon (earth). The goal of

constitutional autochthony is to deliver an indigenous Constitution, the source of whose authority can be located in the new states own soil. The dominant academic view in the middle of the 20th Century was that autochthony could not be achieved simply by drafting an original Constitution or verbally invoking We the People as the source of its authority, for autochthony does not so much concern the content of the Constitution as its pedigree : the chain of legal validity authorising it. This proposition found doctrinal support in the influential theory propounded by the legal philosopher, Hans Kelsen, which

had it that it was inconceivable for a legal system to split into two independent legal systems through a purely legal process. One of the implications of Kelsens theory was that the basic norm ( grundnorm ) of the imperial predecessors Constitution would continue to be at the helm of the legal system of the newly liberated former colony despite the legal transfer of power, precisely because the transfer of power was recognised as legal by the Constitution of the imperial predecessor. On Kelsens account, only an unlawful or revolutionary act could ensure an autochthonous Constitution by rending asunder

all continuity with the imperial predecessor. Such break in legal continuity is automatically achieved where a former colonys independence is won as the result of an armed revolution, as was the case with the United States of America. Independence in such instances is not granted legally by the Crownin-Parliament and the Constitution of the newly liberated former colony is in no way authorised by the imperial predecessor. The situation is very different where independence of a former colony is not brought about by armed revolution, but is legally granted by the imperial predecessor. This was the case with India, Pakistan, Ireland, Sri Lanka and Ghana

whose independence was the result of the British Crown-inParliaments enactment of separate statutes of independence (Independence Act) for each of them. The statutes of independence also set up Constituent Assemblies authorising them to draft new Constitutions for each of these States. Following the constitutionmaking procedure stipulated in the statute of independence would have meant that the validity of the new Constitution could ultimately be traced to an imperial grant. The mere verbal invocation of We the People as the source of authority in such cases would have rung hollow, apart from being jurisprudentially implausible since the source of

authority of the new Constitution would continue to be the imperial predecessors Constitution. In such cases, it was thought that since there was no revolution, one had to be deliberately made up in order to secure an autochthonous Constitution. Accordingly, as John Finnis argues, the framers of new Commonwealth Constitutions took great care to do something illegal so as to make up a revolution, however contrived. Irish influence The Irish were the pioneers in conceiving the idea of a benign legal revolution geared towards constitutional autochthony. Ireland was granted independence

under the Irish Free State Constitution Act, 1922 enacted by the British Crown-in-Parliament which also authorised the Irish Constituent Assembly to draft a Constitution for the newly liberated state. Thus, the Irish Constitution of 1922 was not autochthonous. Though it was drafted by an indigenous Constituent Assembly, its chain of legal validity could be traced to an imperial statutory grant. With a view to changing this state of affairs, in 1937 the Irish Parliament amended the Constitution by deliberately violating the procedure for amendment stipulated in the 1922 Constitution and put the amended Constitution for acceptance in a

referendum. Going one step further, the Irish Parliament also repealed the Irish Free State Constitution Act, 1922 enacted by the British Parliament, though it was not empowered to do so. It is widely accepted that this successfully severed the chain of validity with the Crown-inParliament and ensured a truly autochthonous Constitution. The framers of the Indian Constitution appear to have rehearsed the Irish route to autochthony to the extent possible in Indian conditions. Independence was formally granted to India by the Crown-inParliaments enactment of the Indian Independence Act, 1947 though the executive decision to

grant India independence was arrived at earlier in the Cabinet Mission Plan (1946). It was under the Cabinet Mission Plan that the Constituent Assembly was envisaged and charged with the mandate of drafting the new Constitution for India. This was legally recognised in Section 8 of the Independence Act. The Cabinet Mission Plan had envisaged that the new Constitution would be put to the Crown-in-Parliament for approval. Though the Indian Independence Act did not reiterate this requirement, it did specify that the new Constitution drafted by the Constituent Assembly would have to receive the assent of the Governor General of India, who

would assent to such law in the name of the British Crown. The framers introduced two deliberate procedural errors in the enactment of the Constitution of India in violation of the Independence Act: a) They did not put the Constitution to the approval of the either the British Parliament as envisaged by the Cabinet Mission Plan or the Governor-General as envisaged in the Indian Independence Act 1947; b) Following the Irish precedent, Article 395 of the Constitution of India repealed the Indian Independence Act something the Constituent Assembly did not have the authorisation to do. In doing so, the framers not only repudiated

the source which authorised them to enact the Constitution but it was also a denial, albeit symbolic, of Indian independence being a grant of the imperial Crown-inParliament. This ensured that the chain of constitutional validity did not extend all the way to the Crown-in-Parliament, thus delivering a completely autochthonous Constitution. In this fashion, We the People , through the members of the Constituent Assembly, came to be the source of authority of the Constitution, rather than the authority being traceable to the Indian Independence Act enacted by the British Crown-inParliament. Why did it matter?

This quest for autochthony is likely to come across to some as an abstruse quibble that shouldnt concern anyone other than the most pedantic legal theorists. There were, however, two reasons why the framers of new Commonwealth Constitutions felt constrained to pay such close attention to it. Firstly, it was feared that the British Crown-inParliament could, however improbably, reassert its authority over the newly liberated state by repealing the statute of independence and abrogating the new Constitution. There was, of course, no immediate apprehension of the British taking such a step. All the same, the framers of new Commonwealth

Constitutions would have found, as Geoffrey Marshall notes, merely prudential reassurances to be precarious pegs to hang their nations independence on. Secondly, for sentimental considerations, the framers would have been loath to let the new Constitution be grounded in an imperial grant or be assented to by the British Crown. They would have wanted the new Constitution to be truly autochthonous, stemming from the authority of We the People so that an independent future could, albeit symbolically, be insulated from a troubled imperial past. January 26, 2013 A manifesto for change

Class 1 to Class 12 - Free NCERT Solutions, Test Papers, Lessons, Animations, Videos, Puzzle www.MeritNation.com

In 1979, the Supreme Court of India described an act of rape as a randy molestation, before going on to lament societal permissiveness on the carnal front, evinced in its view by libidinous brahmacharis and lascivious dating and mating by unwed students. Former Chief Justice of India J.S. Verma, former Supreme Court judge Leila Seth, and eminent lawyer Gopal Subramaniam have, this week, helped blow away the toxic shadow that words like these cast over debates on sexual violence in

India. Formed in the wake of the gang rape of a Delhi woman last year, their committee has produced a text that will long be invoked in debates over criminal justice in India. Few of their 22 recommendations on everything from the promulgation of long-pending criminal law amendments to police reform and even street lighting are in themselves new. However, the report founds itself on the Constitutions promise of equality and justice for all, bringing the rights of women to the centrestage of our national project. Not all will back each of the committees proposals. For example, the committees proposal to disqualify politicians facing certain kinds of criminal

cases from standing for election even prior to conviction is controversial. The idea has been resisted by all major parties since 1998. Yet, the foundations have been laid for a forward-looking debate and meaningful action. Even as we celebrate this progress, therefore, it is also important to cast an eye on how much work remains ahead. Like all manifestos for change, the report paints in broad strokes strokes that will need careful filling-in to become a blueprint for real change. Police reform, for example, is key to its thrust. Yet, the report does not tell us precisely what kinds of laws are needed to bring about autonomous and perhaps even

more important, competent policing. Elsewhere, its recommendations can be accused of a degree of naivet. It would indeed be a step forward, for example, if all marriages were to be registered in the presence of a magistrate. Yet, it is hard to see how a magistrate will ensure that the marriage has been solemnised without any demand for dowry. Perhaps most challenging will be giving teeth to recommendations that involve profound social change. It is also true that our society needs children to be informed and equipped with the knowledge and skills to make responsible decisions about sexuality. The real problem, though, is we have a society without a responsible idea of

either sexuality or equality. Indias recent history is, sadly, littered with exhortations for change which went nowhere. It will take sustained citizen mobilisation to ensure the committees work amounts to more than words on paper. MORE IN: OPINION | Today's Paper January 26, 2013 The great number fetish Investment Plans - Invest 8300 pm and get Rs 1.35Cr in return guaranteed.Compare Quotes PolicyBazaar.com/PureInvestment SANKARAN KRISHNA

(per capita $) O ne of the most prominent features of Indias middle-class-driven public culture has been an obsession about our GDP growth rate, and a facile equation of that number with a sense of national achievement or impending arrival into affluence. In media headlines, political speeches, and everyday conversations, the GDP growth rate number whether it is five per cent or eight per cent or whatever has become a staple of our evaluations of the state of national well-being and future trajectory. Ever since Goldman Sachs (an investment banking firm headquartered in New York city) released a report in 2003

(Dreaming with BRICs: the path to 2050) touting Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) as the harbingers of a new wave of global accumulation, we Indians have been afflicted by an optimism disease with little empirical traction. Since then, the GDP numbers implications for Indias development, her attractiveness as an investment site, our standing relative to China, and our competitiveness in the games nations play have become an inescapable part of our social lives. As the former CEO of Infosys and leading public intellectual Nandan Nilekani notes in his book Imagining India , Wherever I go, I find that Indians know our growth numbers backward and forward, and there

is a strong, common feeling among us that our country has finally come of age. Fast growth, limited results Yet, in a recent essay, the eminent economists Amartya Sen and Jean Drze pointed to an important problem with equating Indias economic performance with its GDP growth rate. They noted: There is probably no other example in the history of world development of an economy growing so fast for so long with such limited results in terms of broad-based social progress. Sen and Drze were referring to the fact that for about 32 years now (since 1980), India has averaged annual GDP growth rates of

approximately six per cent whereas, the nations ranking in terms of the Human Development Index has remained unchanged over that period: we were ranked an abysmal 134 in 1980, we were ranked exactly that in 2011. In 1980, about 80 per cent of our population subsisted on less than two dollars a day, and that percentage has declined by as little as five per cent since then. Comparable growth rates sustained over similar lengths of time have utterly transformed societies in the 20th century: South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and large parts of China, to mention the most prominent ones. They have gone from largely poor, illiterate and agrarian societies to middle class, literate,

urbanised and industrial societies with standards of living vastly superior to ours. Whatever may be said about India, it is obvious that no structural transformation of our largely poverty-stricken economy has occurred and what is more, none seems very likely in the immediate future. Not only have three decades of high GDP growth gone unaccompanied by a societal transformation, we seem to have regressed on certain fronts. For instance, while India ranked either first or second in 1980 within South Asia (defined here as comprising India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Bhutan) on most yardsticks such as life expectancy, female literacy,

infant mortality, maternal mortality ratio, improved sanitation, child immunisation, and mean years of schooling, today we are ranked either fifth or last among the South Asian nations on these same yardsticks. Ironically, the only indicator in which we have done well is in the rate of GDP growth per annum. A country like Bangladesh, whose annual GDP growth rate has averaged about half that of Indias over these years, has done vastly better in terms of translating that growth to the quality of life for its poor, its young, and its females. On most yardsticks that matter, Bangladesh now outperforms India. That 30 years of more than twice the much-disparaged Hindu rate of growth has left us

at the absolute rock-bottom of the world tables in terms of malnourished children (44 per cent at the last count significantly more than that anchor of all things sorry and sad about this world, sub-Saharan Africa whose percent of underweight children is 25 per cent) should tell us that there is something seriously amiss about looking at the annual growth rate of the GDP to measure the wellbeing of a society. On demographic dividend The Goldman Sachs report argued that by the year 2050, if Brazil, Russia, Indian and China grew at a certain rate per annum, they would be among the worlds six

largest economies in terms of overall size. This does not tell us anything about either per capita incomes (in terms of which these countries would remain well behind the more affluent nations) or the quality of life of the majority of people therein. The report based its projections mainly on something called the demographic dividend. In simple terms, young societies like India and China have a disproportionately large percentage of people in the workforce relative to those outside it. The size of the workingage cohort is central to the overall attractiveness of an economy from the perspective of an investment bank like Goldman Sachs because it is likely to be in

the market for all sorts of goods homes, automobiles, appliances, electronics, cosmetics, fast-food, etc. The working-age cohorts employment earnings, moreover, can support a social security net for those who have retired and now have to subsist on pensions and savings. On a comparative yardstick, Indias demographic profile was seen by the BRIC report as most favourable because this ratio of working to non-working populations would remain in favour of the former well into the 21st century in our case. In the euphoria over the BRIC report (it was the basis for the disastrous India Shining campaign of the Bharatiya Janata

Party; the same projections were echoed in speeches by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Union Finance Minister Chidambaram, Deputy Chairman of the Central Planning Commission Montek Ahluwalia; and they were quoted ad nauseam in the mainstream media) certain basic facts were glossed over. Firstly, the GDP is a statistic from within the field of National Accounts whose very definition indicates its limited ambit: it is the total market value of all final goods and services produced in a country in a given year. In other words, it is a statistic that measures the quantity, not the quality or content, of economic activity in a society. When a

country liberalises either domestically as India began to do in 1980 or across its international borders as we began after 1991 the increased volume of production, investment, trade and market exchanges will inevitably result in an increase in the GDP. To infer from the growth in GDP any consequences for societal welfare is not logical. The GDPs precursor was devised during the Depression of the 1930s as western governments (in Britain and the United States most prominently) tried to get a handle on the basic statistics of the different sectors of their economies in order to plan state policies to get them out of recession and on to growth. Simon Kuznets and John Maynard

Keynes, both pioneers in its creation and measurement, warned against confusing GDP with anything other than a measure of the sum of economic activity of a society, and especially against confounding it with societal welfare. Something like the Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska will inevitably increase the GDP as the massive clean-up means billions of dollars will be spent, whereas the environmental impact of that disaster did nothing to diminish the GDP of the U.S. as damage to nature is rendered an externality. On the other hand, the positive impact of people in a community bartering or exchanging services (Ill baby sit for you this week while you fix the

leak in my roof) goes unregistered on the GDP metric. Secondly, the BRIC report emerged not from an academic body or a policy think-tank. It came from an investment bank that was interested in getting people to put their money into a newly created Emerging Market fund. Creating a buzz about these economies, and finding some hard nugget or fact that seemed to suggest their fortunes were on the rise, is an inevitable part of the marketing of such funds. The demographic dividend argument offered a perfect empirical fact of just this sort. The extrapolations into the future (projections were made as far as 2030 and even 2050) by a firm

that could not foresee (and was in fact a substantial culprit in) the financial crisis that engulfed the world economy barely four years later were essentially meaningless. It was moreover a tautological argument in the sense that given the overall size of the BRIC economies it was inevitable that their GDPs would over time end up being among the largest in the world. The greater the buzz Goldman Sachs could create about the BRIC economies, the likelier the success of their Emerging Market funds in the short run, which added to their profits as the firm made money off every transaction therein. The Goldman Sachs report should have been assessed as advertising copy rather than as unbiased

prognostication about the future of the world economy. (By the late 2000s, as the BRIC economies with the exception of China failed to perform to expectations, Goldman Sachs had already lost interest in them and had started promoting MIST, another emerging market fund based on Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea and Turkey. The analogy to advertising sloganeering rather than economic analysis should be obvious to anyone here.) Thirdly, for India (or any society) to realise its demographic dividend, at least three factors are critical: its youth need (a) quality education, (b) good health, and (c) jobs that pay a decent wage and enhance their intellectual and

other skills. The story of Indias post-independence development has been one of failure across all three of these sectors, and the picture has not improved post the economic liberalisation initiated in 1991. Recent studies have confirmed what every Indian already knows: the quality of public education at the primary and secondary levels has been abysmal. In large part this is because since 1947 we have emphasised tertiary education for a narrow middle-class and elite, and underinvested in primary and secondary education for the masses. We have already seen that with the highest rate of malnourishment of children below the age of six in the entire world, and a public health infrastructure

that exists more on paper than on the ground, especially outside the cities, large segments of our populace are not in good health. The difficulty of getting clean water, the unavailability of toilets, and decrepit or non-existent sewage systems, have also meant high incidence of preventable diseases like cholera, typhoid, and dysentery. And when it comes to jobs, recent decades of high growth, especially since 2000, have been accompanied by either stagnation or even decline in the absolute numbers of those employed in the organised sector of the economy. Unlike Korea or Taiwan or China (all three of whom also had a thoroughgoing land reform that eliminated landlordism and other feudal

holdovers) whose growth was concentrated initially in relatively labour-intensive sectors such as manufacturing, ours has been skewed heavily towards skill- and education-intensive sectors like Information Technology, pharmaceuticals, and business process outsourcing. The performance in these sectors has been stellar in terms of exports and their contribution to the GDP, but not in terms of their ability to generate large numbers of jobs. Twenty years after the onset of the phenomenal IT boom, even with the most expansive definition of its ambit, this sector only employs about nine million Indians while India produces about 13 million new entrants into the job market every year .

What all this adds up to is this: given its history of inadequate investment in human capital and the present patterns and trajectory of its economy India seems unlikely to reap the demographic dividend that other societies seem to have cashed in on. There is nothing inherent in demographic patterns that guarantees economic success: whether a certain set of preconditions eventuates in socially widespread and meaningful growth depends, as always, on state policies that prioritise human capital (the health and education of its citizenry); on efficient state and

political party institutions to deliver these programmes to the people; and on the ability to insulate these programmes from being hijacked by elites and middlemen. Middle class focus How then can one explain the Indian middle class obsession with the GDP growth number, and the extent to which many of us have equated high growth rates of recent years as a sign of our emergence as a global power? One has to step outside the domain of the empirical and the economic, and into the social and the psychological to understand this obsession with a number, this

fetish we have developed for the GDP. The Indian middle class is not conventional in the sense of being sandwiched between rich, conservative elites and the lowest third of a society that is poor and potentially revolutionary. In that ideal type, the middle class was the vanguard in the emergence and consolidation of liberal democracy, individual freedoms, capitalist development, and a politics of moderation and civil society. There was a convergence between the material and ideological needs of this middle class that made it the champion of liberal democracy and market capitalism. Or as the comparative historian Barrington Moore Jr. put

it in a pithy formulation: no bourgeois, no democracy. In India, the middle class is folded into the apex and is the dominant component of the top 20 per cent of society in terms of income and wealth, as well as in terms of cultural and symbolic capital as reflected in its education, castestatus and westernisation. It is overwhelmingly upper caste and its substantive, as distinct from rhetorical, commitment to egalitarianism and democracy outside its own narrow ambit, and often even within it, is shallow. This class self-image is that of a meritocratic group that has advanced through education, discipline, and deferred enjoyment. However, both the colonial period and the decades

after independence show this merit to be based more on privileged and restricted access to western education and professions that emerged in the wake of modernisation rather than by rising to the top in a context marked by widespread equality of opportunity. Even if its commitment to the idea of inclusive economic development that makes a significant impact on the daily lives of the vast majority of its fellow citizens was sincere, we have neither the political institutions state bureaucracy or party cadres nor the political commitment to act in ways that will, at least in the short-run, go against this middle class own

material interests. This disjuncture between a set of ideological or rhetorical commitments to development, on the one hand, and, on the other, the absence of the institutional means to achieve them, as well as the fact that their very achievement might jeopardise our own status as an elite, makes the Indian middle class peculiarly susceptible to technocratic quick-fixes. Our desire to be seen by our peers in the rest of the world as an emerging economy, or a successful nation, seems to often overwhelm our ability to regard the economic and social reality that surrounds us with a clear eye. The GDP growth rate number, and its neat extrapolation into the future by reports like the one by

Goldman Sachs that seem to literally leapfrog over the difficult, messy and forbidding social and political tasks that are the inevitable prerequisite of successful economic development, thus capture our imaginations in ways that are obsessive. A fetish is an inanimate object imbued by humans with magical powers and believed to bring good luck or fortune. We have fetishised the GDP number and read all our hopes and dreams into a statistic that was never designed to bear the weight it has come to carry. The reverence and faith with which we have treated the GDP number says more about the social-psychology of our

middle class and our desire to be seen as a successful and emerging economy than it does about the actual state of life for the vast majority of our fellow Indians. January 28, 2013 Two-nation theory all over again VIDYA SUBRAHMANIAM

TOO SKITTISH?While the Home Minister should have substantiated his accusations, reactions have been equally over the top, the trigger being an extremist elements comment. BJP members stage a protest at Jantar Mantar against Mr. Shindes remarks. PHOTO: PTI On his prime-time show on Times Now, Arnab Goswami was in redhot rage: this time over Union

Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shindes statement that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) ran terror camps. To quote Mr. Shinde : their training camps are promoting Hindu terrorism. It has become a habit with Mr. Shinde to shoot from the hip and then look bewildered at the commotion he has caused. In the middle of the student exodus back to the north-east, when passions desperately needed cooling, he offered to run more trains to take the frightened crowds home rather than reasoning with them to stay back. More recently Mr. Shinde made the astonishing claim that Prime Minister Manmohan

Singh had been kept out of the loop on Ajmal Kasabs secret execution. Mr. Shinde undoubtedly misspoke on Hindu terrorism and Hindu training camps at the Congresss Jaipur conclave. He should have known that at party meets government takes a back seat to organisation. And even if he typically mixed up the two roles, he should have substantiated his accusations and explained why he was indulging the BJP if it ran terror camps. And he most certainly should not have used Hindu in place of the ideological construct of Hindutva. And yet the reactions to the Home Ministers gaffe have been equally over the top, with Mr. Goswami leading the

pack of breast-beaters hyperventilating over India playing into Pakistans hands. The trigger was provided by Lashkar-eTaiba founder Hafiz Saeed who obviously saw it as a gotcha! moment: World should take notice and declare India a state that is supporting terror on its soil after its HM Shinde candidly confessed. Pakistans statement Several questions arise: Is India going to get all defensive and skittish each time an extremist from across the border deliberately makes a provocative comment? Why do we need to respond to Hafiz Saeed when official Pakistan has reacted far

more responsibly? Pakistans Foreign Office spokesperson Moazzam Khan said: We being a responsible country do not want to get into speculative mode. Mr. Khan avoided direct accusations even on the Samjhauta Express blasts where Indian investigators have moved from blaming Pakistan to Hindutva groups: Pakistan has repeatedly said that we want a thorough investigation (into Samjhauta) and want the investigation to be shared with Pakistan, and whosoever are the perpetrators or culprits should be punished in accordance with the law. Can anyone quarrel with this perfectly reasonable response? More importantly, consider the full implications of pushing the

line that admitting to Hindutva terror means scoring a self-goal vis--vis Pakistan. Should investigators on the trail of rightwing terror groups stop midcourse because the results might help Pakistan? Will Pakistan decide how we deal with our internal problems? If the answer is yes, then, henceforth India must decide that all terrorists must necessarily be Muslim even if the evidence throws up Hindutva connections as it has indeed done in a host of blast cases, from Malegaon to Mecca Masjid to Samjhauta Express. India must resort to this dishonesty in order that we dont find ourselves squirming under Pakistans accusing gaze. This is

absurd logic and leads to the alarming conclusion that Pakistan will not object if the Indian terrorists are Muslim. And why so? Because Indian Muslims are Pakistani by belief and behaviour! Isnt it a point to ponder that the playing into Pak hands objection is never raised when an Indian Muslim organisation is under the scanner for home-grown terror? What is this if not the two-nation theory all over again? The BJP said as much when it reacted to Mr. Shindes statement thus: It is a downright insult of Indias spiritual, cultural and civilisational heritage In other words, if a Hindutva link is found to terror, then the nation is insulted. But obviously not when

innocent Muslims are picked up, tortured and incarcerated as they have been in all the cases mentioned. The NIA charge sheets If Mr. Shinde felt the need to take on the Hindutva parivar, he could have stuck to the charge sheets filed by the National Investigation Agency (NIA). The NIA, which has so far filed two charge sheets in the Samjhauta Express case one on June 20, 2011 and the second on August 9, 2012 did not once use the word Hindu. But the ideological orientation of the accused was clear enough: Their collective motive was attributed to Jihadi/terrorist attacks on the temples of Akshardham (Gujarat),

Raghunath (Jammu) and Sankat Mochan (Varanasi). And they were charged with bearing deep vengeance against not only the Jehadi terrorists but unfortunately against an entire minority community. The second charge sheet spoke of the accused getting training in a jungle near Bagli, District Dewas, Madhya Pradesh. As citizens, we can question the charge sheets, and argue that they could turn out to be fabrications, as they have in some of the Jehadi cases. But at least the Minister would have been stating what is on record both on the ideological direction of the accused and on the training camps.

Similarly the BJP should have forced Mr. Shinde to provide evidence that the party ran training camps. But it had no business taking the moral high ground on terrorism. The party never objected to Muslims being randomly picked up. It said with relish that all terrorists are Muslim. Today the partys hypocritical new line is that teJanuary 28, 2013 Insightful and path-breaking Change India's future - Share Projects or Ideas to bring a change. Win Lacs in Grants! www.sparktherise.com/Join_US BRINDA KARAT

The UPA government has perhaps got more than what it bargained for from the committee it set up, headed by the former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Justice J.S. Verma, in the wake of the public outrage following the horrific Delhi gang rape. The government had decided on only limited terms of reference for the committee (whose other members were an equally eminent former Supreme Court judge, Justice Leila Seth, and former Solicitor General Gopal Subramaniam) but fortunately the members, in their words, interpreted it expansively. Through the over 600 pages of this path-breaking, insightful report, with the marshalling of

irrefutable evidence, what emerges is a strong indictment of the governments at the Centre and the States for their criminal callousness in ignoring the earlier recommendations of measures to prevent sexual violence against women. In section after section, the committee quotes reports from 1980 of Law Commissions, earlier judgments and directions of the Supreme Court, and notifications and circulars of the Home Ministry, which were never implemented. Critical of governments It blasts governments for the lack of accountability of public servants, stressing the importance of making dereliction of duty a

punishable offence. In the context of the Centres refusal to act against Delhis top police officials, including the Police Commissioner, the committees proposal is particularly relevant. It also proposes to include the concept of command responsibility in the law, holding superior officers responsible for the acts of their juniors when the circumstances show that the crime could have been prevented had the superior acted. In fact, the Parliamentary Select Committee headed by the present Union Law Minister set up several years ago to re-examine the flawed official bill against torture discussed this issue in detail and recommended the inclusion of

command responsibility. But the committees recommendations have remained in cold storage. Similarly, the Parliamentary Committee on Womens Empowerment made a strong recommendation to bring the armed forces and the paramilitary forces under the purview of criminal law, but the aggressive opposition of Defence Service Chiefs was a convenient reason for not accepting it. The Verma Committee takes this forward by recommending a concrete amendment to the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act to prevent it from being used as a shield to protect criminals in uniform. Significantly, it suggests the appointment of Special

Commissioners in conflict zones to monitor womens security. It is well known how women, in Chhattisgarh and elsewhere, become targets, caught between militants and the security forces. The recommendations on the states culpability on a range of issues pinpointed in the report are most welcome but it is not because these recommendations were not made earlier that the situation is as it is, but because of the lack of political will. The report locates violence against women and children in a broader framework of violation of constitutional guarantees, demolishing self-serving arguments that governments

cannot be held responsible for individual acts of violence. At a time when market based ideologies so close to the hearts and minds of those in power promote the governments retreat from its fundamental social responsibilities, the report reminds governments of their primary responsibility to ensure through preventive and deterrent measures a secure environment for its citizens. The report says: The failure of good governance is the obvious root cause for the current unsafe environment eroding the rule of law Indeed the direction of governance in the last decade or so has been dominated by a promotion of corporate led growth, the unleashing of animal spirits in the

economy with no concern for its impact on increasing social inequalities and subverting the constitutional and fundamental rights of people. The statistics of increasing violence against women tell their own story. In 2011 alone, there were 24,206 registered cases of rape of which 2,579 were registered in the 89 listed cities. There were as many as 51, 538 cases of sexual harassment of which around 25 per cent took place in cities. Thus a majority of rape and sexual harassment victims are from the rural and mofussil areas, of whom substantial numbers are poorer sections of women and children who live and work in insecure

environments. All child rape cases in Haryana in the last few months, for example, occurred because there was no crche or safe place where the working mother could leave the child. Vulnerable sections The changing nature of labour contracts, from permanent workers to casual or contract daily workers, makes women workers, particularly migrant women, vulnerable to the exploitation of employers, landlords, contractors and supervisors. The privatisation of essential services has resulted in a lack of accountability in public transport, lack of electricity, absence of public toilets, all of which are directly related to

government policies creating insecurity for women. The report comments We believe that fundamental rights must not be ignored by the state on a specious argument of paucity of resources when the rich continue to thrive and the wasteful expenditure of public monies is more then evident. The report also mentions critical issues such as food security and malnutrition. These are welcome as they do take into account the experience of millions of poor women across the country who face sexual harassment on a daily basis arising out of their economic conditions, worsening by the day. It is, therefore, inexplicable that the committees

recommendations for amendments to the criminal laws omit crucial clauses concerning economically and socially exploited women in other words, the class and caste aspects of sexual violence. For example, the long pending demand to consider sexual crimes on the basis of caste against Dalit and Adivasi women or against women on the basis of communal considerations as aggravated sexual assault, inviting enhanced punishment, is unaddressed. It is well documented how women face intense insecurity because of dominant caste hostility or communal violence. Further, because of the increasing number of cases of rape by powerful and

politically connected men, womens organisations had successfully ensured the inclusion of a clause in the official Bill of amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code introduced in Parliament that when rape is committed by a man being in a position of economic, social or political dominance, there should be enhanced punishment. But this does not find a place in the committee's recommendations. In this context, there is an important demand made by rape survivors from economically and socially exploited sections for a comprehensive rehabilitation package. Some have mocked this as compensation for rape. In fact, it is virtually impossible for a rape

survivor who belongs to the working class or the rural poor to bear the expenses of the legal process. It is not enough for the state to provide a lawyer. The question of loss of work, of sometimes having to shift residence, of frequent consultations with lawyers and trips to the court, incurring expenses and losing a days income are critical issues in the decision of whether or not to fight for justice. It is puzzling that the report does not mention a mandatory rehabilitation package or did not review the existing schemes of rehabilitation. The only mention is that the perpetrator should pay for the victims medical expenses. The victim might find that abhorrent

and demeaning and, in any case, what if the accused proves that he has no funds? If the court wishes to fine the accused, there is a legal provision for that and hefty fines can and should be imposed. But it is the state which must take the responsibility for medical expenses and rehabilitation. Disappointing One of the most widely supported demands of the nationwide protests was time-bound procedure in cases of rape. Today, a rape victim, including a child, may have to wait even 10 years or more for the judgment. The report recognises the large number of pending cases with courts and calls for an end to frequent

adjournments in rape cases. It suggests as a way out recruitment of retired judges, extending the age of retirement of judges at the lower levels and so on. But disappointingly, there is no concrete recommendation regarding a time-bound procedure for cases of rape or the setting up of fast track courts. The three months time frame suggested by a large number of organisations could have been accepted, as lengthy judicial procedures lead to gross injustice for rape victims. The committee must be congratulated on its multidimensional report which constitutes a big step forward in the struggle for womens rights. Its recommendations can be

converted into longstanding gains if the present struggles are linked to political interventions that force the government to act on them. It cannot be allowed to meet the same fate as the 15year-old Womens Reservation Bill which remains an ornament to be dusted and displayed before every election. (Brinda Karat is a member of the Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India Marxist.)rror has no religion. January 28, 2013 Insightful and path-breaking Change India's future - Share Projects or Ideas to bring a change. Win Lacs in Grants! www.sparktherise.com/Join_US

BRINDA KARAT

The UPA government has perhaps got more than what it bargained for from the committee it set up, headed by the former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Justice J.S. Verma, in the wake of the public outrage following the horrific Delhi gang rape. The government had decided on only limited terms of reference for the committee (whose other members were an equally eminent former Supreme Court judge, Justice Leila Seth, and former Solicitor General Gopal Subramaniam) but fortunately the members, in their words, interpreted it expansively.

Through the over 600 pages of this path-breaking, insightful report, with the marshalling of irrefutable evidence, what emerges is a strong indictment of the governments at the Centre and the States for their criminal callousness in ignoring the earlier recommendations of measures to prevent sexual violence against women. In section after section, the committee quotes reports from 1980 of Law Commissions, earlier judgments and directions of the Supreme Court, and notifications and circulars of the Home Ministry, which were never implemented. Critical of governments

It blasts governments for the lack of accountability of public servants, stressing the importance of making dereliction of duty a punishable offence. In the context of the Centres refusal to act against Delhis top police officials, including the Police Commissioner, the committees proposal is particularly relevant. It also proposes to include the concept of command responsibility in the law, holding superior officers responsible for the acts of their juniors when the circumstances show that the crime could have been prevented had the superior acted. In fact, the Parliamentary Select Committee headed by the present Union Law Minister set up several

years ago to re-examine the flawed official bill against torture discussed this issue in detail and recommended the inclusion of command responsibility. But the committees recommendations have remained in cold storage. Similarly, the Parliamentary Committee on Womens Empowerment made a strong recommendation to bring the armed forces and the paramilitary forces under the purview of criminal law, but the aggressive opposition of Defence Service Chiefs was a convenient reason for not accepting it. The Verma Committee takes this forward by recommending a concrete amendment to the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act

to prevent it from being used as a shield to protect criminals in uniform. Significantly, it suggests the appointment of Special Commissioners in conflict zones to monitor womens security. It is well known how women, in Chhattisgarh and elsewhere, become targets, caught between militants and the security forces. The recommendations on the states culpability on a range of issues pinpointed in the report are most welcome but it is not because these recommendations were not made earlier that the situation is as it is, but because of the lack of political will. The report locates violence against women and children in a

broader framework of violation of constitutional guarantees, demolishing self-serving arguments that governments cannot be held responsible for individual acts of violence. At a time when market based ideologies so close to the hearts and minds of those in power promote the governments retreat from its fundamental social responsibilities, the report reminds governments of their primary responsibility to ensure through preventive and deterrent measures a secure environment for its citizens. The report says: The failure of good governance is the obvious root cause for the current unsafe environment eroding the rule of law Indeed the direction of governance in the

last decade or so has been dominated by a promotion of corporate led growth, the unleashing of animal spirits in the economy with no concern for its impact on increasing social inequalities and subverting the constitutional and fundamental rights of people. The statistics of increasing violence against women tell their own story. In 2011 alone, there were 24,206 registered cases of rape of which 2,579 were registered in the 89 listed cities. There were as many as 51, 538 cases of sexual harassment of which around 25 per cent took place in cities. Thus a majority of rape and sexual harassment victims are from the rural and

mofussil areas, of whom substantial numbers are poorer sections of women and children who live and work in insecure environments. All child rape cases in Haryana in the last few months, for example, occurred because there was no crche or safe place where the working mother could leave the child. Vulnerable sections The changing nature of labour contracts, from permanent workers to casual or contract daily workers, makes women workers, particularly migrant women, vulnerable to the exploitation of employers, landlords, contractors and supervisors. The privatisation of essential services has resulted

in a lack of accountability in public transport, lack of electricity, absence of public toilets, all of which are directly related to government policies creating insecurity for women. The report comments We believe that fundamental rights must not be ignored by the state on a specious argument of paucity of resources when the rich continue to thrive and the wasteful expenditure of public monies is more then evident. The report also mentions critical issues such as food security and malnutrition. These are welcome as they do take into account the experience of millions of poor women across the country who face sexual harassment on a daily

basis arising out of their economic conditions, worsening by the day. It is, therefore, inexplicable that the committees recommendations for amendments to the criminal laws omit crucial clauses concerning economically and socially exploited women in other words, the class and caste aspects of sexual violence. For example, the long pending demand to consider sexual crimes on the basis of caste against Dalit and Adivasi women or against women on the basis of communal considerations as aggravated sexual assault, inviting enhanced punishment, is unaddressed. It is well documented how women face intense insecurity because of

dominant caste hostility or communal violence. Further, because of the increasing number of cases of rape by powerful and politically connected men, womens organisations had successfully ensured the inclusion of a clause in the official Bill of amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code introduced in Parliament that when rape is committed by a man being in a position of economic, social or political dominance, there should be enhanced punishment. But this does not find a place in the committee's recommendations. In this context, there is an important demand made by rape survivors from economically and socially exploited sections for a

comprehensive rehabilitation package. Some have mocked this as compensation for rape. In fact, it is virtually impossible for a rape survivor who belongs to the working class or the rural poor to bear the expenses of the legal process. It is not enough for the state to provide a lawyer. The question of loss of work, of sometimes having to shift residence, of frequent consultations with lawyers and trips to the court, incurring expenses and losing a days income are critical issues in the decision of whether or not to fight for justice. It is puzzling that the report does not mention a mandatory rehabilitation package or did not review the existing schemes of rehabilitation. The

only mention is that the perpetrator should pay for the victims medical expenses. The victim might find that abhorrent and demeaning and, in any case, what if the accused proves that he has no funds? If the court wishes to fine the accused, there is a legal provision for that and hefty fines can and should be imposed. But it is the state which must take the responsibility for medical expenses and rehabilitation. Disappointing One of the most widely supported demands of the nationwide protests was time-bound procedure in cases of rape. Today, a rape victim, including a child, may have to wait even 10 years or

more for the judgment. The report recognises the large number of pending cases with courts and calls for an end to frequent adjournments in rape cases. It suggests as a way out recruitment of retired judges, extending the age of retirement of judges at the lower levels and so on. But disappointingly, there is no concrete recommendation regarding a time-bound procedure for cases of rape or the setting up of fast track courts. The three months time frame suggested by a large number of organisations could have been accepted, as lengthy judicial procedures lead to gross injustice for rape victims. The committee congratulated must on be its

multidimensional report which constitutes a big step forward in the struggle for womens rights. Its recommendations can be converted into longstanding gains if the present struggles are linked to political interventions that force the government to act on them. It cannot be allowed to meet the same fate as the 15year-old Womens Reservation Bill which remains an ornament to be dusted and displayed before every election. (Brinda Karat is a member of the Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India Marxist.) January 28, 2013 No room for nuance in this fragile republic

Anti Corruption Solutions - Detect Corruption & Bribery In Your Business Network Today www.worldcompliance.com HARSH SETHI

MISREADING THE CONVERSATION:The days when such an event would have been dismissed as irrelevant, if not comic, are now over. Instead, we want instant retributory action without pausing to ascertain the facts. PHOTO: ROHIT JAIN PARAS It is symptomatic of the times we live in, of the climate of political discourse that we have contributed to, that even relatively innocuous statements

can get so easily misrepresented and twisted to convey a meaning that is diametrically opposite to what was said and meant. The Jaipur Literature Festival 2013, which until the morning of Republic Day had managed to successfully steer clear of any controversy, was suddenly rocked by angry protests based upon (and this must be stressed) a total misreading of remarks made by Ashis Nandy. The panel discussion on The Republic of Ideas, featuring IBN7 Managing Editor Ashutosh, author and Tehelka editor Tarun Tejpal, historian Patrick French, philosopher Richard Sorabji, and social psychologist Ashis Nandy, was moderated by the author and

publisher, Urvashi Butalia. Following a fascinating exchange on the promise of the Indian Republic and Constitution, the discussion turned to the theme of corruption and the significance of the anti-corruption protests led by Anna Hazare. Making a passionate plea to deconstruct the sociology of corruption, Tarun Tejpal argued that we need to understand the corruption of the poor and the marginalised as a necessary strategy to break through the stifling nature of our rules, regulations and laws. Characterising Indian society as deeply stratified, hierarchical and oppressive, our laws and rules, he claimed, are mostly designed to

keep out the erstwhile excluded strata from having their say. The corruption of people like us an elite which has both the resources and power to subvert the system often goes unnoticed, and if discovered, rarely results in prosecution. The misdemeanours of the others, in contrast, not only get caught, but also generate outrage, in part because they do not have the necessary skills to successfully cover up their corruption. Grounded in earlier remarks Subsequent remarks made by Ashis Nandy need to be read and understood in the context of what Tarun Tejpal said speaking before Nandy did. Agreeing with Tejpal,

Nandy went on to argue that such corruption of the excluded the Dalits, tribals, Other Backward Classes (OBC) and minorities is inevitable if they are to break out from the bonds of an oppressive web of rules and regulations. He went on to say, referring to both himself and Richard Sorabji, that if they arranged to get fellowships for their children at Harvard or Oxford, as part of a trade in mutual and selective favours, none will comment about that, as if it is axiomatic that the fellowship was awarded on the basis of merit. Politicians or leaders of the oppressed strata, being new to the game and relatively untutored in the skills of manipulation, are unlikely to seek academic fellowships as a form of

graft, and are more likely to covet and corner licences to operate petrol pumps. These pumps are publicly noticeable and can provoke outrage. Their licensees are linked to their corrupt benefactors, who are then condemned by the chattering classes in metropolitan cities. So far so good. Nandy then went on to more provocatively stretch the argument, asserting that it is precisely this kind of corruption that has saved the Republic and democracy by enabling a degree of social and economic mobility and pluralising the composition of Indias elite. Furthermore, he argued, that it is most likely the list of corrupt could be inordinately dominated by Dalits,

tribals, minorities and OBCs. Despite his prefacing his last remarks, saying that what he was about to say may shock many people, and that he nevertheless wished to stress the point about how we understand corruption, many in the audience (and one on the panel) completely missed Nandys point, and immediately accused him of casteist bias, calling upon him to withdraw his remarks and tender an apology. Some in the audience demanded that he should be charged under the Protection of Civil Rights Act for hurting the sentiments of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes. Competitive outrage follows

Nandys protestations that what he said and meant was completely the opposite of what he was being charged with were not persuasive once the atmosphere was charged with heightened emotions. Competitive outrage, taking on the familiar form favoured by some overly strident and aggressive TV anchors, evidently gives no quarter to nuanced arguments, any irony, or even black humour. When Nandy characterised the former Chief Minister of Jharkhand, Madhu Koda (now in jail), as Indias first dollar billionaire, he was hardly extolling the virtues of corruption or turning a blind eye to the perfidies of upper caste politicians. At best, in an underhand and sly way, he was

expressing admiration for the abilities of a tribal leader in matching up to what has hitherto been an exclusive preserve of Indias upper caste elite. Accusations of Nandy of being anti-Dalit/tribal/minority groups, the calls for registering a FIR against him, and demanding that he should be arrested would, in our better days, have been dismissed as an irrelevant, if not comic, aside. Such innocent days have faded, unfortunately, into a distant past. So quick are we now to take offence and demand immediate retributory action against alleged offenders that we almost never take a moment to pause, to ascertain the facts, understand what was said and

meant, in what context, and to what ends. All we want is action, and now! Signals shrinking discourse Subsequent demands by the Bahujan Samaj Party leader, Mayawati, by the chairman of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes P.L. Punia, and others, to arrest Ashis Nandy, even though none of them was present during the discussion, illustrates the danger of a growing kind of prickliness and intolerance. Worse still, such occasions are used by politicians to signal their commitment to their constituencies and shore up their images. In the process we are left with a diminished public

discourse. Even liberals, usually quick to defend freedom of speech, advocate caution and temperance in the expression of reactions to intemperate allegations of the kind made against Nandy. Is this stance, one wonders, a compensatory guilt, marking what is politically correct, an obverse privileging of the erstwhile dispossessed? Ashis Nandys choice of words, phrases, and examples can be questioned. He is not an organised and scintillating public speaker. One can also differ with his argument and analysis, for instance, his failure to distinguish between corruption of the poor and the corruption of their leaders, whose subversion of

rules often results in them robbing the very poor who are also their constituents. Nevertheless, Nandys argument that the rules of the game have been set by an elite class to which he belongs, which remains a privileged lot, and therefore, that the deliberate subversion of those rules is an inevitable strategy for those striving for survival and upward mobility, certainly has merit. Clamping down on nuanced utterances and elliptical statements of the kind Nandy made will only make us a poorer democracy and Republic. January 28, 2013 Padma as patronage Flight Tickets 1+1 Free - Book a Flight with MakeMyTrip and Get

the next Ticket Absolutely Free Makemytrip.com/Buy1Get1Free

Can it ever be the case that the Padma awards are announced and there are no accusations and controversy following them? Instituted in 1954 to acknowledge distinguished and exceptional individual achievements in various fields, the once prestigious awards have since come into so much bad odour thanks to lobbying and arbitrariness that today the Padma recognition has lost some of the lustre that accompanied it in the early years of the republic. Consequently, it has become something of a pattern for wellregarded individuals to decline the highest civilian commendation,

the latest to do so being accomplished playback singer S. Janaki who, with four national awards behind her, felt it beneath her dignity to accept a Padma Bhushan at age 74. Ms Janakis anguish was all the more for South India not getting recognition commensurate with the regions abundant talent. The charge is by no means baseless. This year, 20 recipients from Delhi figured among the awards compared to 21 from all the four southern States put together. Is it any wonder then that Padma awards have come to be viewed as payment for services rendered to the government than as an honour conferred for service to the nation?

Indeed, the awards have been used as patronage by successive governments, which have honoured both dubious individuals and men otherwise distinguished but rewarded specifically for a favour done. The Manmohan Singh government awarded the Padma Bhushan to the controversial hotelier Sant Singh Chatwal on the specious plea that he had played a key role in facilitating the India-United States civil nuclear agreement. The Padma Bhushan award for Chittaranjan Singh Ranawat came in the wake of his successful knee surgery on Atal Bihari Vajpayee. This arbitrariness has vested the Padma decision-making process with needless mystique, leading to frustrations and charges of bias.

Admittedly there are men and women of great eminence who richly deserve to be honoured, and some of them do make it to the Padma awards. And yet the opaque selection process places them alongside those suspected to have won the awards by means more foul than fair. It is not that there are no selection guidelines. In 1996, a high-level committee headed by K.R. Narayanan, who was Vice-President at the time, set stringent qualifications for the award, stressing the exceptional nature of the recipients service. Just how well the guidelines were observed can be seen from the fact that in 2004 President Abdul Kalam had to write to Mr. Vajpayee advising caution in the selection of the awardees. The

two UPA governments have, unfortunately, continued the tradition, flouting the deadline for receiving recommendations and habitually overruling the Awards Committee. January 29, 2013 Myanmars Kachin problem needs political touch Facebook Myanmar - Connecting & Sharing the World. Marke Your Free Profile Today! www.Facebook.com/Myanmar NEHGINPAO KIPGEN

END THE GUNFIRE:It is important to recognise that the current violence is a consequence of an unresolved historical problem. (Top) A peace march in Yangon

calling for a halt to the conflict and (above) rebels in Kachin province. PHOTOS: AP, AFP Almost all ethnic armed groups have successfully signed ceasefire agreements with the Burmese government. The Kachin Independence Organisation, with its armed wing, the Kachin Independence Army (KIO/KIA), is the only major armed group still battling the Burmese army. Along with the Chins, the Shans and the Burmans, the Kachins signed the historic Panglong agreement to form the Union of Burma in 1947, a year before the countrys independence from the British. However, in postindependence Burma, the Kachins

felt betrayed and discriminated by the Burmese central government. The Kachins were denied autonomy that was agreed in principle during the Panglong conference. Moreover, the Kachins, who are mostly Christians, opposed the introduction of Buddhism as the state religion by the government of Prime Minister U Nu during the first parliamentary democracy. Formed in 1961, the KIO/KIA initially demanded independence from the Union of Burma but later opted for autonomy based on the Panglong agreement. The group first signed a ceasefire agreement with the State Law and Order

Restoration Council, the thenmilitary government, in 1994. Why the ceasefire ended The 17-year-old ceasefire ended in June 2011 primarily because of two important reasons. First, in late April 2009, the KIO/KIA refused to accept the terms and conditions of transforming itself into Border Guard Force which would come under the direct command of the Burmese Army. Second, the Burmese military's interest to control lucrative hydropower projects and other natural resources in Kachin state led to the attack on KIA on June 9, 2011.

The conflict has resulted in the loss of thousands of lives on both sides and the displacement of tens of thousands of Kachin civilians. Several rounds of meetings have been held without any concrete result. The KIA demands that cessation of armed conflict must lead to or guarantee political solution. It also demands that the government declare a nationwide cessation of hostilities toward minorities and hold a national conference that resembles the Panglong conference. The governments position is that ceasefire should precede any political dialogue. The Burmese government wants to sign a ceasefire agreement at an

individual group level, contrary to the KIO/KIAs demand for nationwide ceasefire. On January 3, the Burmese government admitted the use of fighter jets and helicopters it had initially denied this to attack the KIA positions. The government claimed that fighter jets and helicopters were used to clear KIA fighters who were attacking logistic units of the Burmese army. The KIO/KIA said that the Burmese army was preparing to attack its headquarters in Laiza town. Subsequently on January 14, the KIA claimed that three Kachin civilians, including a 15-year-old boy and a 76-year-old Christian

deacon, were killed and four others wounded by the Burmese armys artillery shells at the heart of Laiza town. The government denied such shelling and suggested that it could have been caused by an explosion of ammunition stockpile. On January 18, Parliament called for a cessation of hostilities. Hours later, the Burmese government, backed by the military, declared a unilateral ceasefire with effect from the next day on the eve of an international donors conference where President Thein Sein unveiled a timeline for reforms in the country's transition to a more democratic rule.

But the fighting has continued and is an indication of increasing distrust and heightened tension between the Kachin and the Army. It is important to recognise that the current violence is a consequence of an unresolved historical problem and cannot be seen as an isolated issue. It is a part and parcel of the larger minority problems in the country. The minorities have made a consistent demand, that is, political autonomy. Armed conflict in Kachin state is a hindrance to Burmas democratic transition. The conflict also damages Burma's credibility as it happens when the international community has

begun to show great interest in the country. The democratic opposition led by the National League for Democracy must not remain silent on the issue even if both sides have committed human rights violations. The aim, to win majority of seats in the 2015 parliamentary elections, should not overshadow the urgent need for a solution to the Kachin problem. Ethnic armed groups that have signed ceasefire agreements with the government should understand that genuine peace and national reconciliation cannot be achieved on an individual basis. As much as they have struggled

together for the past several decades for the restoration of democracy and for the establishment of a federal union, it is now equally important to show solidarity with the Kachins. Several collaborative efforts have helped highlight the centrality of minority issues in the decades-old Burmas problems. Leaving the Kachins on their own at this juncture of the political transition will only weaken the bond and friendship resulting from ethnic minorities common struggle for equality of rights and autonomy. The West must act The international community, especially the western nations

that have lifted sanctions on Burma, should use their economic and political influence to end the crisis. If the conflict does not end, the U.S. government should reconsider its intention to invite the Burmese military to a U.S. and Thai-led multinational military exercise later this year. The United Nations and Association of Southeast Asian Nations should put pressure on the Burmese government that continued violence in Kachin state is unacceptable. Since the KIO/KIA does not demand secession or independence from the Union of Burma, a negotiated political settlement is not an impossible task.

History has shown that minority problems in Burma cannot be addressed militarily. A blame game between the two warring parties will not yield peace and stability. The ultimate objective should aim to bring a mutually initiated and accepted ceasefire agreement; provide assistance to the internally displaced persons, and bring a permanent political solution to the lingering problem. It requires mutual trust, participation and commitment from both the KIA and the Burmese military. January 29, 2013 No sweetening this bitter pill Jobs in IT - PGPIT offers 5.5 Month IT Training with Job Exposure & Paid Internship niitpgpit.com

K. SUJATHA RAO

The absence of a well thought out policy framework for strengthening the health system is the most important issue facing the health sector in India. In the government, there is no clarity on what the nations health system should be 10 years hence. Should it be a public sector dominated system like Brazil or China; or a regulated private-led like the U.S.; or one where both sectors function but have only one payer as in the U.K.? In Japan, delivery is private but the government sets the prices. Each option has its costs, benefits, tradeoffs and

systems to ensure control on costs and quality. Unregulated India is a unique laissez faire model with a private sector-led health system that is unregulated and has no rules of the game spelt out, not even as minimal as those laid down for opening a liquor shop. And so, one can set up a nursing home in a residential colony; throw infectious waste anywhere, charge any amount that the market allows and have no systems of oversight to assure quality. The private sector is further incentivised by excise duty waivers, subsidised loans for establishing hospitals, tax breaks and a liberalised health insurance

market with tax exemptions for the premium. More recently, a new innovation has emerged known as government sponsored insurance schemes (Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana, Arogyashri, Kalaignar, etc.) under which governments buy the insurance on behalf of the people/target group for providing cashless services for inpatient care, mainly surgeries. Under this scheme, the providers charge on a DRG basis, the insurance companies have assured incomes and the entire risk is borne by the government. While such schemes have widened access by making private sector facilities available, their impact on addressing the three

critical issues of the health sector equity, quality, and efficiency has not been addressed. Instead, pricing structures are distorted and new dimensions of fraudulent and corrupt practices have entered the health sector that continues to register inflation at 30 per cent, with negligible impact on reducing catastrophic expenditures, impoverishing millions in the process. Privatisation of the health sector started in late 1980s, accelerated in the 1990s with the further withdrawal of the state under the punishing conditionality of the IMF structural adjustment, and got further emboldened with the extensive incentives provided. In 2005, the state bounced back with

a three-fold increase in the budget to revitalise the rural health delivery systems under the National Rural Health Mission, running as a parallel track to the private eco system. It is this duality and dysfunctional policymaking that is haemorrhaging the sector and requires to be stopped without delay. The worn down public health infrastructure cannot be revitalised without changing the rules of the game, bringing in legal provisions to regulate further growth of the private sector, make it efficient and accountable and provide a level-playing field. Bihar experiment

It is time to recognise the market failures inherent to this sector and the role of the political economy that is sustaining it, making it increasingly impossible to regulate and establish institutional mechanisms with the requisite capabilities to effectively manage the mess. Bihars recent experiment of outsourcing diagnostics to the private sector is telling unqualified persons were employed at some centres, but no action was taken due to political pressure. It is scary to think that a number of innocent people might have been given the wrong diagnosis and put on needless medication. This is just a small example to illustrate the kind of mess we are in.

The policy confusion is worsened by the push for greater decentralisation without ensuring the availability of capacities at those levels to manage such complex systems. It is against this scenario that Chhattisgarhs recent policy initiative needs to be viewed. The policy of contracting out diagnostic services to private sector networks in 379 public facilities for 10 years, guaranteeing a minimum patient load and permitting paying patients in addition and prices pegged to those paid for under the Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS), monitored and managed by a third party, is fraught with adverse implications for the strengthening of the public sector and huge costs for the

government, should it choose to pay for them. Absence of strategy It is not the outsourcing that is wrong. It is the absence of a strategy to draw on the strengths of the public and private sectors. If the government is unable to recruit staff to establish laboratories in, say, an area like Bastar, it is unclear how the private sector can be lured to set up, for instance, a radiology unit, there unless huge amounts are paid to it to cover the sustainability risks involved. Likewise, outsourcing is being attempted in areas that already have laboratory facilities. While the value addition is not clear, it

will undoubtedly result in the closure of the public sector services and also entail paying three times more to the private sector. And it will be three times as the CGHS prices that are being taken as a benchmark, based on the average of prices quoted on a tender basis. There is no scientific basis for CGHS rate-fixing and such a system will only result in overpaying the private sector in Chhattisgarh where the prices of inputs vary from those in Mumbai or Delhi and between Raipur and Bastar. More worrying are the qualifying criteria that only large private sector networks like corporate hospitals can meet. Small but excellent not-for-profit hospitals like the Shahid hospital in Dalli Raja in Durg or the Jan

Swasthya Sahayog at Giniari in Bilaspur will both be disqualified. What needs to be done Knee-jerk solutions and unintelligent tinkering have had a disastrous effect on the health sector in India. The government needs to look at health system development and put in place requisite conditions, such as an institutional capacity to control provider behaviour through well laid down national protocols and standard operating procedures, penalties and incentive structures. It should explore cost-effective options such as the intensive use of technology that enables electronic transmission of samples for diagnosis at centralised

laboratories, pricing of services, develop IT systems to closely monitor not quantitative but qualitative outcomes as well, put in place grievance redress systems, tightening and insulating the enforcement systems at all levels from political pressures to make individuals from the ANM to the specialist, the ward boy to the laboratory technician public or private accountable to outcomes and patients, before opening up partnerships with the private sector on such a large scale. What needs to be done is known, but sadly how to do it is not. Governments, at the Centre and in the States, need to allow people with field experience and practical

knowledge of the health system to contribute their expertise. What is also needed today more than ever is the need to listen to the ground as patients, women in villages, front line workers, the hapless doctor in the PHC, all have a different story to tell. We cannot afford any more blundering! January 29, 2013 Everything that spills from temples is not sacred Your Zodiac Horoscope - Insert Your Birthdate & Get Answers about Past-Present and Future. Free AboutAstro.com/horoscope PRACHEE SINHA

I am writing this not in defence of inquisitions or kangaroo courts

in which anchors and their handpicked panellists flagellate those with politically incorrect views (with reference to Madhu Purnima Kishwars article in The Hindu (Op-Ed, Dont like this temple? Choose another, January 17, 2013). I did not watch the programme that, in Ms Kishwars opinion, wronged one of the young hereditary priests of Sabarimala, but I too take a dim view of shouting matches on the television, especially with the anchors themselves doing more than a fair share of the shouting. There is a great need to promote reasoned argument and a healthy respect for difference in our public culture. Television news channels are not exactly covering

themselves with glory in that regard. But, it seems to me that Ms Kishwar too has fallen prey to the same temptation. One may not exactly shout in print, but it is equally disagreeable to make a caricature of ones interlocutor in a debate and then beat that caricature with the logical stick. Appeals for respecting difference and for being tolerant towards diversity of faiths and benign religious practices are welcome. But are faiths and religious practices out of bounds for all reasoned debate? Must every belief that is sanctioned by a religion and held by a sect or by a multitude be considered indubitable and inviolably sacred

by everyone else too? Is it fair to denounce all questioning of ancient beliefs and practices as following in the footsteps of colonial rulers and as intolerance of the imperious missionaries of liberalism? Even more important is the attitude one should have towards the filth that may spill or secrete from the sacred. The interiors of a temple, with all that goes on inside it, may be held by many as holy, but much of what flows out into the society from the temples drains may be quite toxic. If a deity is fond of modaks and laddoos and other high cholesterol, high calorie diets, who can have an argument with him! But if the followers of that

deity (or the members of the priestly class who get to eat most of the prasadam ) begin to die from cardiovascular ailments far more frequently than the statistical average, it may be necessary to investigate the correlation between the religious practice and its social fallout. There have been, and still are, far more pernicious fallouts than mere obesity. If Dalits and many others from the so-called lower castes have been prohibited from entering Hindu temples, it is not a matter of what the reigning deity of the temple thinks of Dalits and other outcastes. It is more a matter of what his or her followers think of them and what kind of social relationships,

behaviours and practices come out of that belief. I have known activists who are confirmed atheists, some of them even communists, who have fought for the rights of Dalits, women and other outcastes to enter a temple where such people were not allowed. It is not the case that these atheists suffered a sudden bout of belief, or they were merely spoiling for a fight. Such practices sanction and symbolise the modes of oppression, discrimination, exclusion and humiliation that a society practices in domains far beyond the precincts of a temple. These must be fought against and the underlying beliefs must be brought under rational as well as normative questioning. Diversity is

generally a good thing and respect for difference a good value. But not everything can be justified and tolerated in the name of diversity. Ideologies of universality and homogeneity may have originated often in the conceit and the megalomania of colonial and imperial modernity. But not all agreements in the modern world about what are moral and civilized ways of living are to be undone because they smack of universality. We have no reasons to celebrate a malignant diversity that may result from adding or tolerating beliefs and practices, whether of ancient or contemporary origins, that are oppressive, inegalitarian and antihuman.

Cannot escape scrutiny The beliefs and practices of any community, sect or nation cannot escape being scrutinised for what they do to their own members and what they do to others. No form of life cultural, social or civilizational is eternal and unchanging, and none can seek from the diversity principle an absolute protection for all kinds of practices. Of course, any threat to a life form that comes simply from the might of a majority, or from the naked and irrational power of a system, or from the lure of gold held out by motivated interests, is immoral and must be resisted. But no form of human life can refuse to listen to arguments of reason and ethics over which humanity

has come to an agreement even if to a minimalist and contested degree and even if through a tortuous course of history. Ms Kishwar seems to conflate the desires and dispositions of the deities with those of the devotees. Diversity of deities may be benign in itself. But too often it gives rise to malignant diversity in the social sphere. The injustice done to Others whether Dalits, women or adherents of other religions or non-religious belief systems in the name of religious beliefs and practices is not merely a matter of faith-based diversity. It is a matter that must be subjected to rational and normative-ethical scrutiny.

When I feel that my rights are being violated by the loudspeakers of Azan or by the blaring out of bhajans and chants at 5 a.m., I should not be made to feel guilty that this is a thinking worthy of an imperious missionary of liberalism. Nor should I be held responsible for not soundproofing my bedroom.