The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

EDITORIALS

Acknowledging realities
It’s worth walking on the peace track

A LOT of water has flowed down the Jhelum during the five decades and much has changed in the subcontinent and the world. Of late, President Pervez Musharraf has been taking into account these changes. He is trying to be realistic when he expresses his readiness to drop the demand for implementation of the 1948 UN resolutions to find a solution to the Kashmir problem. The General’s offer is certainly a step in the right direction. For one thing, the UN resolutions had lost their validity when Pakistan itself had refused to comply with the requirements under them at that time. And for another, events have overtaken the resolutions. India and Pakistan stand committed to settling all their bilateral problems through talks under the Simla agreement. The Lahore declaration also sought to carry the process further, although the Kargil war was a setback.

Every summit-level talk held between the two countries after the Simla agreement was signed referred to the historic document that brought peace and hope to the subcontinent after a short but decisive war. The agreement still remains the cornerstone of Indo-Pakistan relations as underscored by world leaders at all international forums. Yet, surprisingly, Pakistan persisted with periodic references to the UN resolutions when even Arab countries realised that they had outlived their utility. If Pakistan drops once and for all the demand for implementation of the UN resolutions, it will considerably improve the bilateral relations.

More than statements, much needs to be done on the ground to promote a dialogue between the two countries. As far as India is concerned, the touchstone of Pakistan’s sincerity is its willingness to end its overt and covert support to terrorism. As long as terrorist training camps flourish in the country and terrorists are allowed to infiltrate into India, intentions of Pakistani rulers will remain suspect. General Musharraf had promised several world leaders that he would crack down on the militants in Pakistan but this assurance has not yet been fulfilled. The General has, however, taken a few other steps to ease tensions and promote people-to-people contacts between India and Pakistan. India has also made some forward-looking moves to promote such contacts. If the two countries keep on making moves towards peace, the people of the subcontinent will feel reassured.

Hanging as deterrent
Warning to merchants of spurious drugs

A major initiative for reforms in the health sector was taken by the Union Cabinet on Thursday when it recommended the penalty of death for fake drug makers. The Drugs and Cosmetics Act will now be amended to incorporate the recommendation in favour of capital punishment for individuals and firms involved in manufacturing, selling and dealing in fake drugs. Under the existing provisions it is a bailable and non-cognisable offence. All this will change once the recommendation takes the shape of a revised law for protecting public health.

The clearance for the landmark initiative was obtained at the state health ministers’ meeting in August. Union Health Minister Sushma Swaraj and the Central Council of Health and Family Welfare made a forceful presentation at the two-day conference for replacing the present toothless laws for compelling fake drug makers to shut shop or face the risk of being sentenced to death. There is no denying the fact that spurious medicines kill unspecified number of people. According to rough estimates the merchants of death cause a loss of nearly $1 billion a year to the legal drug makers. About 15 to 20 per cent of all medicines in chemist shops across the country are fake.

No law can be effective without an efficient investigation agency and a responsive judicial system at the district level. The laboratories where the drugs are tested use old and outdated equipment. Besides, there have been complaints of shady drug makers using their influence and bribing their way out of trouble. Once the law is revised the government should set up special fast track courts, as Pakistan has done after introducing similar tough legal measures in September, for deciding the fake drug cases. Without punishing the offenders fast with stiffest punishment, the purpose for which the law is proposed to be amended will be defeated. The new law might prove a deterrent against those who play with the health of patients.

Now potato dumping
Problem of plenty defies a solution

FOR the past six years potato prices have ruled low in Punjab due to excess production. Three years ago for the first time farmers came out on the roads in large numbers with their tractor-trailers and dumped potatoes in Jalandhar to protest against the unremunerative prices. This year again a similar situation is prevailing. Farmers in the Rampura Phool area of Bathinda district have thrown their produce in the open as the cost of taking it to the market or keeping it in a cold-storage is higher than the market price.

The growers obviously have no mechanism to assess demand and supply of most agricultural commodities. And little help has come from any government agency. For long used to dealing with situations of scarcity, state governments have not yet learnt to face a glut. Potato over-production is not the only recurring problem faced by farmers. Apple-growers in Himachal Pradesh frequently go through the same ordeal. Sugarcane-growers in Haryana and Punjab have to often agitate for payments.

The farmer has no respite from problems: if it is not a crop failure he has to cope with, then it is either the marketing problem or a low price hassle. Talk of diversification makes no sense to a farmer who does not get reasonable returns from crops other than wheat and paddy. In budget after budget, the importance of promoting food processing industries has been stressed, but without any tangible results on the ground. Exports are almost impossible. Most Indian agricultural commodities — whether it is wheat or potatoes — cannot be exported for being of poor quality. They do not come up to the global standards. A collective effort, therefore, is required to improve the quality of farm produce and encourage food processing in a big way in Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh.

Thought for the day

Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.

—Lin Yutang

ARTICLE

The Ajoy Ghosh story
The prisoner let down by law and the State
by Justice A.S. Anand (retd)

THE need for penal reform, we hope, remains a priority. It is quite evident that civil society, the judiciary and the prison authorities have all failed to protect the human rights of prisoners. They do not shed all their constitutional rights at the gates of the jail. This relates to all the vulnerable groups that we choose to lock up in our badly run prisons. If the State has given itself the power to lock up people, surely it is not a power to keep them under subhuman and degrading conditions. Nor is it a power that denies the essentials of justice, both procedural and substantive. I would like to demonstrate just how vital is the need for penal reform by taking you through a somewhat detailed narrative of a case and I will leave you to judge what is the extent of the need to look into the sphere of penal reforms in procedure and substance.

On August 17, 1998, an article appeared in India Today. The title of the article was “Hell’s prisoners”. The article gave facts and figures of many cases of prisoners but one case that caught my attention was that of a young man called Ajoy Ghosh from West Bengal. The article disturbed me enough to ponder over what I needed to do and how. After reading the article I wondered how I could take some positive action to remedy something that should never have happened in the first place. I did not want to treat the article as a reason for embarking on action under public interest litigation, but at the same time I was anxious to find out more facts. I asked the Director-General of Prisons of the State and the Director-General of Police to provide a report based on the allegations levelled in the article in the case of Ajoy Ghosh. The report gave me more than one sleepless night.

I would like you to pay attention to the chronology of the events and to the dates on which things happened in this case because they are important. A young man called Ajoy Ghosh had been accused of murdering his brother in July, 1962. He was 16 years of age at the time. He was produced before the Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate on July 29, 1962. He was produced a second time in the court in September, 1962, and thereafter in November, 1962. The next order in the file was dated February 8, 1964. The order said that Ajoy Ghosh would be kept in custody because he was not of sound mind and therefore unable to stand trial.

After this there was an order on May 7, 1964, and the date of the next order was November 12, 1983, i.e. 19 years later. Ajoy Ghosh had been declared to be insane, and not able to stand trial. Ajoy Ghosh was not sent to a mental asylum or a psychiatric home. He was remanded in custody and everybody, the magistrate and the jail authorities forgot about him. They forgot that they have a human being as a prisoner. The human being ceased to be a human being once he was given a number in jail.

In 1985 when the matter went before the Chief Magistrate he asked the Superintendent of Jails to produce Ajoy Ghosh in court in a week. Ajoy Ghosh was produced in court on November 18, 1983. The order passed reads: “The accused be produced before this court when he is found physically and mentally fit”. Ajoy Ghosh was not produced in court and in December 1983 a further order was given that Ajoy Ghosh shall remain in judicial custody till he was mentally and physically fit. This order delayed Ajoy Ghosh’s next appearance before the Court by another two years. Two years later on November 25, 1985, Ajoy Ghosh was once again not produced before the court. His medical reports were produced which stated that Ajoy Ghosh was still mentally ill and physically unfit.

Four years later (in 1989) an advocate of the Calcutta High Court who had gone to interview one of his clients in jail learnt about the case of Ajoy Ghosh who had been arrested when he was 16 years old and who had been in jail custody for 27 years! The advocate filed a petition in the Calcutta High Court. The judges demanded that Ajoy Ghosh be produced before the court. Ajoy Ghosh was produced before the court on December 20, 1994. A directive was given by the High Court to the Inspector General of Prisons to get Ajoy Ghosh examined by a board of doctors and then recommended appropriate action. After that the advocate seems to have lost interest in Ajoy Ghosh. There is no information available after the High Court’s directive. Ajoy Ghosh had been let down by the judiciary, the magistrate, the prison authorities and the state.

On January 20, 2000, an order was given by the lower court based on the earlier directive of the High Court that Ajoy Ghosh be shifted to an old-age home. Even for that no action was taken.

When the reports of Ajoy Ghosh came to the Supreme Court I decided to monitor the case. I asked for a full report from the West Bengal Government, from the Chief Justice of the High Court, from the Session Judge, from the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate. The reports came without any explanation of the big gaps of four years, of 11 years and then a further two years. Ajoy Ghosh was still in jail. Even if he had been convicted for murdering his brother he would have normally been out of jail by 1976. And we were now in the year 2000.

A letter was issued to old-age homes to accept Ajoy Ghosh. Most of the old-age homes refused to take him on the ground that Ajoy Ghosh was a “lunatic” in custody and if he were taken into the old-age home there would be too many policemen and security persons hanging around the home and they did not want the atmosphere of their home disturbed in that manner. Finally, a group of missionaries undertook to take care of Ajoy Ghosh out of charity and without remuneration or payment. I had to give an order that Ajoy Ghosh be shifted to the Missionary home with an attendant provided to him at state expense; that a psychiatrist examine Ajoy Ghosh once a week again at state expense; that Ajoy Ghosh be provided with clothing and other basic amenities and that there should be no policemen surrounding him.

Ajoy Ghosh continues to be in jail. Do we need further justification for penal reforms and access to justice? Are the prisons serving the purpose for which they were set up? An ideal prison system should perform the same role as a hospital and the health services: they need to take care of all those inside regardless of who they are or where they come from and what they have done.

The case of Ajoy Ghosh brings several strands of the story of (in)justice into full view. There is the feature of him as a juvenile. There is the slow grinding machinery that provides neither speed nor the facilities for trying young offenders. Two years later he is called insane; another sensitive feature in our system that has been ignored and ill-understood. Far from providing “special handling”, the subject is tossed from one part of the system to another waiting for labelling slots and time slots. It is a story of frustration all round — for all those who went through it and even now for all those who might hear it. How many Ajoy Ghoshes do we need to wake up and realise that we are blurring many issues that are life and death issues and not just matters of procedure?

— The writer, a former Chief Justice of India, is the Chairman of the Human Rights Commission. The article is based on his address to a recent international conference on New Initiatives in Penal Reform and Access to Justice.

MIDDLE

From India to Bharat
by Dimple Dhaliwal Srivastava

HERE I sit in my airy little office in a rural dispensary in a sleepy little village of a small district of Punjab, where things and people seem to be at a standstill. The huge banyan trees swinging gently with the wind, the street dogs chasing and barking at the occasional vehicle going by, the hum of the tractors and combines harvesting in the fields all around, the joyous screams of dusty children splashing in the muddy village ponds along with their cattle.... it all seems light years away from the life of metropolitan Delhi, bustling Mumbai, and the hip upcoming Chandigarh — cities which have raised, educated and nurtured me.

Our son has completed five years and has joined school here — the only big one in the town and finds it a huge change from the spic and span, colourful kindergarten of Chandigarh with its playway teaching, talented teachers and smart, savvy kids. Here it’s rundown benches and chairs, local Hinglish-speaking staff, study by book and the three Rs, and a few scorching hot swings outside.

There are no departmental stores to shop in, no video games or bowling arcades, no parks for picnics, no fun movies running in multiplexes, no good children’s channel on a grainy cable connection, no decent eating joints around the corner, no good bookshop, toystore or hobby clubs.

But then children are a resilient and adaptable lot and he is adjusting well enough, has made many friends and is learning lots of Punjabi, kite-flying, tractor-riding, games like gulli-danda, stapu, kanchae, clambering up trees, hopping after “daddus”, chasing “jugnus” etc.!

And as my hubby dear tells me, all his learning and teaching has to be home-based ultimately. Parents — more appropriately mothers — zindabad! And that is another reason why I am at my dispensary, as it’s a job not very demanding, yet satisfying and it has given me a chance to work at the grassroots level for my people. It has changed my whole city born and bred perspective about how things really work at the PHC/subcentre level and all that we read in PSM books in medical college is right in front of me — The illiteracy, poverty, ignorance, sanitation and health problems etc etc.... in the midst of the apparent affluence of rural Punjab. I may not be able to correct all but there is much I can do by way of diagnosis, treatment where possible, referral and education. And I try to do whatever I can for my people, sitting as one amongst them.

Time flies, seasons change and the landscape transforms from vast expanses of bronzed wheat fields to paddy swaying in water-drenched fields to the stark white of soft cotton on the wizened narma/kapah plants. As I drive past with tractor-trolleys, cattle and slate-doves for company and the placid green canal waters flowing alongside, I ruminate over my mixed bag of joys and pain, excitement and disappointments, privileges and setbacks and thank God for all his blessings. I pen down some of these thoughts to share with my family and friends scattered all over the globe — in an effort to make you understand why I am where I am and very happily so!

OPED

This woman of beauty loves her roots
India influences Americans, says Saira Mohan
by Ela Dutt

Saira Mohan, one of USA’s top models today, loves India which she has visited several times. She got married in India, her favourite country. Her fan mail from India is all about problems youths face — these range from girls wanting to know how they can get a boy’s attention, to boys trying to do the same — it all boils down to how to attract the opposite sex.

New York: Saira Mohan, one of the hottest models in the US, is today thankful that her Indian father never objected to her missing school to follow a career in fashion.

Saira, 25, who was discovered as a model at age 13, has an Indo-Canadian father and a French-Irish-Canadian mother. She was featured on the cover in a recent issue of Newsweek magazine as the global face of beauty.

When she got into modelling, “my parents were thrilled and scared all at the same time,” Saira told IANS in an interview.

“My father is a businessman and he really understood the amount of money I was making at such a young age.

“And although it was hard for him to let me miss school two times a week as an Indian, he absolutely let me go ahead. He divided my time and supported me the whole time.”

On her father’s side of the family, Mohan’s ancestors left Punjab for Kenya during British rule, her own father moved to Canada from London, met her mother, Georgina Buffet, and they continue to live in Calgary, Alberta.

She spent her growing years in Calgary before her father was transferred by the company to open the California offices. “That move opened up my whole career in modelling.”

Saira also went on to find her soul mate at 22, dabble in stocks and, of course, manage her business of being beautiful!

She treats her profession like the business it is and says her business instinct is not least because of her father, Harish Kumar Mohan of ATCO Group, and her husband Christopher Cooper of the Cooper Fund in Chicago.

Her day revolves around answering fan mail, especially after her eBook “How to Seduce (And Marry) the Woman of My Dreams” came out, travelling three times a week, doing shoots and, of late, getting on television.

“My whole life I have been the tallest girl in school and with a mix in background, which totally helped me along,” the 5 foot 10.5 inch tall Saira said.

Since the day she was picked from a line-up at the Elite Look-Of-The-Year contest held at a mall in Los Angeles, and after she signed up with Elite Modelling Agency of Cindy Crawford fame, she has walked the plank for Chanel, Karl Lagerfeld, and Calvin Klein as well as Victoria’s Secret to name just a few.

She sees Crawford as the epitome of what a great model should be.

“A great model should have a great mind to go along with a great face, somebody who understands the business rather than just the good looks. And I did get good education and hail from a good family,” she said.

“I don’t have a full degree but I did go to college. I am an absolute advocate of education, but at this point of time in my life it would be absolutely silly for me to give up all the money I make each year. I will go back, maybe, I am taking it all in my stride.” Saira says she loves India, which she has visited several times.

“I got married in India — it’s my favourite country. I really find such a peace in India — I have this slogan ‘Go to India and meet yourself’.”

Her youthful philosophy seems to hark back to the 1960s generation.

“I think that coming from America which is all about material possessions and no spirituality — when you go to India, you are faced with the virtue of India — all these people living even in ditches — Americans can learn about how balanced they are.

“And every Indian is very well educated. And this says a lot about India.”

If she gets any time to herself, she likes to paint. “And I work on causes that pertain to India.”

Her fan mail from India is all about problems young people face.

“I am able to help so many youths in India with their dilemmas. Problems range from girls in India wanting to know how they can get a boy’s attention, to guys trying to do the same — it all boils down to how to attract the opposite sex.

“It is also about what the Western world is all about. They all want to come to the West and feel all the opportunities are here. I tell them that opportunities are there where you are and India is becoming such a huge thing and it really influences America. I am trying to let them know they can fulfil their dreams in India.”

And she may not be far from Bollywood. “At the moment I am also speaking to producers — top Bollywood producers — on an upcoming film,” she says.

But she hesitates to divulge the name as the contract is yet to be tied up. Predictably, it is a comedy about finding a mate in America with a catchy title.

Right now though, Saira is readying for Christmas, which she will spend with her parents. — IANS

Legal Notes
Whistle Blower law to fight corruption
by S.S. Negi

THE importance of enacting the “Whistle Blower Act” to fight corruption in high places, as proposed by the Constitution Review Commission in its report to the Centre, has been brought to the notice of Supreme Court in a petition seeking probe into the murder of National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) engineer Satyendra Dubey by contractor mafia in Bihar.

According to advocate Prakash Upadhyay, the Constitution Review Commission, headed by former Chief Justice of India M.N. Venkatachalliah, had laid down that the name of the person who “blows the whistle” against corruption, should be kept secret to protect him or her against exposure to any threat by the powerful and mighty, found involved in corrupt practices.

The petitioner has sought constitution of an inquiry commission to look into the fact as from where the name of Dubey was leaked to media even when he had requested the Prime Minister to keep it secret in a communication sent to PMO bringing to its notice rampant corruption in the Bihar-segment of the Golden Quadrilateral road project.

Freedom of speech

Another important issue pertaining to the freedom of speech, as enshrined under Article 19 of the Constitution, has been brought before the apex court by “The Hindu” highlighting whether media could be “gagged” for bringing to light acts of “commission and omission” by politicians in power by dragging journalists to courts under the provision of Section 499 of Indian Penal Code, dealing with “criminal defamation”.

The Hindu has challenged the constitutional validity of Section 499 of the IPC, enacted over a hundred years ago, contending that the provision has become obsolete in the present context when the concept of freedom of an individual and the constitutional law in all progressive democracies around the globe has travelled much far.

The Hindu’s counsel Harish Salve has sought quashing of the provision of Section 499, under which the Jayalalithaa government had filed 25 cases against the newspaper for writing against her alleged acts of “commission and omission,” stating that “criticism of a public figure in the public good, cannot be equated with criticism of a private individual”.

The apex court has sought the Centre’s reply to the petition by issuing notices to it and the Tamil Nadu government after Attorney-General Soli J. Sorabjee said that a “right balance has to be maintained between all institutions of democracy with due respect to each other.”

CBI probe into riot cases

The Narendra Modi Government in Gujarat, which had come under constant fire by the Supreme Court for “callous” handling of riot cases, for the first time agreed for CBI probe into a case pertaining to gangrape and murder of several women during the post-Godhra violence in Chaparwal village in Dahod district on March 3, 2002.

The court, while ordering CBI probe into the matter, sought progress report from the agency within eight weeks after accepting the plea of rape victim Bilkis Yakub Rasool, who had survived the subsequent murderous attack on her by a mob.

For the first time, Gujarat government counsel Mukul Rohtagi offered to transfer the case to CBI.

Environmental education

After forcing the Centre and the states to implement its various orders regarding protection of environment, be it for conversion of diesel buses into CNG feul in highly polluted national capital, ban on forest felling and protection of Taj Mahal and other monuments, the Supreme Court has now focused its attention on environmental education in schools.

In an important order passed this week, the court made it mandatory for the Centre and the states to introduce environment as a compulsory subject in schools from the next academic session and directed the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) to draw a model syllabus for it by April 14, 2004.