P A G E
Saturday, December 4, 1999
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E D I T O R I A L P A G E |
Saturday, December 4, 1999 |
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New
mood of cooperation
EDUCATION
SCENE |
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Dynasty remains supreme in Cong
No
safety in number of shows
December 4, 1924 |
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New mood of cooperation A START has been made in stitching together a bipartisan approach to important legislation like the insurance Bill in the Lok Sabha. And that is to be wholeheartedly welcomed. It gives rise to the hope that this new mood will last and both the ruling alliance and the main opposition party will continue to work together to clear the huge backlog of work. A warm word of praise is also due to the other opposition parties which are sharply critical of the new policy but adopted the traditional form of protest by walking out. In last Parliament they would have just crowded the well of the House and used their lung power to paralyse the proceedings. True, the change of tactics was forced on them once the Congress let it be known that it would support the Bill after its preferred amendments found acceptance. What is particularly satisfying is the hard work the party put in to build a consensus. Its representative called on the Prime Minister to inform him of the party stand; it set up a team of seasoned leaders to negotiate with some Ministers, and clinched the issue hours before the voting. The sequence of events is rated as a personal assertion of decisiveness by Congress president Sonia Gandhi. The advocates of non-cooperation did try to pressurise her but in the end the party realised that it had to honour its repeated commitment to back economic reforms which are broadly in the national interest. The next big occasion will come when the country has to decide on signing the CTBT. No party has declared its position on the sensitive question and it would not do for the government to wait for the last minute to seek support or unilaterally decide and expect the others to fall in line. The Prime Minister should invite the leaders of all parties to initiate the process of consultation and whatever is finally decided should reflect collective policy and wisdom. That is the door the voting on IRDA Bill has opened. Two Cabinet members
acted in conflicting style in the Lok Sabha. Home
Minister L.K.Advani pointedly thanked the Congress
president for the gesture which smoothened the path for
the Bill’s adoption. That was almost like asking the
main opposition party to forget the acrimony of the
election campaign and respond to the ruling alliance
decisions on merit. But Finance Minister was carried away
by the thought of delivering on his one-year-old promise
of opening up the insurance sector to lecture the smaller
parties. He accused them of being victims of a medieval
mindset and told them to grow up and move on with times.
His advice was incongruous with his party’s voting
behaviour just two years ago. At that time the BJP was in
opposition; it first promised support but later voted
against the introduction of the Bill. An angry and
frustrated Chidambaram was blamed for relying on the
party and rushing in while the Congress members were away
in Calcutta for the party’s plenary session. The
idea is not to support the Left parties which have
ideological reservations on the privatisation of
insurance and not even to criticise the Minister but to
appeal to him to gauge the present thinking and take the
maximum advantage of it. He has much work to do like
amending the section allowing the new companies to invest
a quarter of the collected premium in securities approved
by the government of the UK, yes, the United Kingdom. He
has also to play down the laughably exaggerated estimates
of an increase in annual collection. At present the LIC
and the GIC collect about Rs 28,000 crore every year; one
over-enthusiastic business chamber expects this to soar
to nearly Rs 2,00,000 crore in a decade. In other words,
the government hopes that privatised insurance will be
another mutual fund in which the deposits jumped five
times in a few years. Well, it can also turn out to be
another telecom bidding where ambitious bidders burnt
their finger! |
Save the Ganga THAT the report of the World Commission on Water has included the Ganga among the most polluted rivers in the world would surprise only those who perform blindly the ritual of washing their sins in it without bothering to clean up the mess they create while seeking salvation for their worldly misdeeds. According to the report, 97 per cent of the water of the holiest of the holy rivers in India is unfit for human consumption. In a country where religion plays a dominant role in determining human action it is strange that both industries and individuals continue to commit what can be called a crime against man and God by polluting not only the Ganga but also other water sources. The report should also help alert the environmentalists to the kind of damage the continued abuse of the Ganga is likely to cause to other life forms. It says that the water levels in the river are so depleted and polluted that the Sunderbans wetlands and the priceless mangrove forests in the delta are in danger of becoming extinct. Of course, the study
funded by the World Bank and the United Nations says that
half the rivers of the world are severely polluted or are
rapidly drying up. And in the global village the drying
up of the Yellow River in China, or the Ganga, or the
Colorado in the USA now has the potential of spreading
agony and suffering beyond national boundaries. The fact
that the study on the levels of pollution in major rivers
across the globe was undertaken by the World Commission
for Water does support the thesis that mankind must learn
to swim and sink together in the expanding cesspool of
global pollution. But global initiatives without local
support and involvement of the communities most affected
by the pollution of rivers cannot be expected to deliver
mankind from the self-invited curse of death and disease.
A decade ago the Ganga Action Plan was launched with
great fanfare to “purify” the holy river. This
plan as the one for cleaning up the equally polluted
Yamuna river has been abandoned and now exists only in
official files. In a country where commissions and
committees are set up at the drop of a hat for solving
problems the Centre in August this year decided to create
a Ganga Trust Fund for achieving what the much-publicised
action plan could not, in spite of the personal
involvement of Rajiv Gandhi in the project. It is
doubtful whether the “fund” would be able to do
what the “plan” could not. However, instead of
giving up hope, a more sensible approach would be to
launch a people’s movement for depolluting the Ganga
and other rivers. |
Foggy planning THAT air travellers in India dread the thought of a section of the airlines employees going on a flash strike on one pretext or the other. Normally, this disruption of work comes during the peak tourist season. The advent of December and January sends a different kind of shivers down the spine of the passengers. These are the months when many cities in north India have heavy fog. In advanced countries air services operate without a hitch even amidst hail and snow. Not here. In Delhi and many other cities, fog itself is enough to throw the entire service out of gear. At times, no flights run for days together, especially during evening and morning hours. The inconvenience to the passengers is unimaginable. So, nobody bothers much about it. The airlines themselves suffer heavy losses. These were of the tune of Rs 10 crore for Air-India and Indian Airlines last year. At that time, it was given out that the problems of the country in this regard would be over by November when the advanced category III instrument landing system (ILS) will be ready. November has come and gone by, without any trace of the much-awaited instrument, which lets a plane land even in zero visibility. Now it is being conceded that it will not be before August or September that this system will be functional. No government agency is willing to take the blame for the delay. It has been given out that the delay is only due to a court case. So, just grin and bear it when the ugly scenes of last year(s) are duly repeated in the days to come. There is at least some consolation to be had from the fact that the category II instrument is already in place, which allows a runway visibility of 350 metres. So what if the ageing Indian Airlines fleet of Boeings used by Alliance Air has not been cleared even for this? There is some more salve for the pained passengers. Take heart, there will be a coordination cell and one met. expert to give advice. Will that help flights to run with no or at least minimum disruptions? There may be a handful
of excuses for various acts of commission and omission
but the fact remains that the Indian airports figure low
on international charts in terms of dependability. The
head of British Airways recently did not mince words
while castigating the authorities concerned. That did not
make him very popular in Delhi but he was only voicing
the feelings of a majority of travellers. Despite all the
talk about total preparedness to fight the Y2K menace,
most of the foreign airlines have withdrawn or
rescheduled their flights for December 31 and January 1.
That may not be due to the laxity of any particular
section of the employees. But the fog muddle perhaps is. |
EDUCATION SCENE MOST people subscribe to the view that the southern states are doing better than the northern states. Punjab and Haryana were some kind of an exception to this trend of development. Of late, however, these states have lost that edge which they had over the other northern states. In this connection, it would be helpful to refer to two recent educational innovations in those states. Though not yet known in northern India, they testify to the fact that they not only talk about “development” but actually take concrete steps towards implementation. More specifically, the politicians in those states are prepared to work for the common people and do not put their interests before that of the others. One factor which deeply demoralises teachers without exception is the manner in which they are transferred from place to place. This practice was evolved by the British in India before 1947 though they did not follow it in their own country. Oddly enough, we have not only continued it but even vulgarised it in an unforgivable way. Whether it is so intended or not, what gets conveyed to teachers at different levels is that they can be moved around as and when it suits the bosses. And who are the bosses? The immediate bosses are the senior bureaucrats. But behind them lurks the shadow of the politicians. Even if it is not the Minister of Education himself, he can be spoken to by somebody and the wheel of bureaucratic action can be set in motion in that peculiarly dubious manner which is so characteristic of contemporary India. Some 4-5 years ago, I pointed out in an article that in government colleges in Haryana, out of 1,600 teachers in service, something like 1,000 were shuffled around every year. Presumably the situation remains what it was then. Punjab is not particularly different except that the scale of operation is not as widespread. But that is more true of colleges than of schools. While admittedly, both states are somewhat small in size and transfers in these states do not exactly mean what they would mean in a large-sized state like UP or MP, it does dislocate people and create problems, both domestic and professional. Above all, it gives the teachers a feeling that they are like a football who can be kicked around anywhere. The experience of the recent election should convey this message to MLAs and the ministers that unless the existing humiliating practice is abandoned, that day is not far off when it is they who will be kicked out. These strong words are used advisedly. As the last election has shown, the country is changing and it is time that the political masters begin to recognise this fact. Our system of transfers is totally unlike that of other countries. Even if teachers are paid by the state which is the general practice at the school level in most countries, they are not transferred from place to place. Instead, teachers once appointed to a particular institution generally stay on there and grow with the job along with the institution. This helps to promote identification between the teachers and the institution. In those countries, schools come to acquire a personality of their own as much as other educational institutions do. This process is helped in a marked way by the fact that teachers, once appointed get so identified with these institutions that it is not uncommon to find more than one generation going to the same school and being taught by the same teachers. What about delinquent teachers, someone can ask. Some of them do not teach and are found to be guilty of certain activities which can be objected to. If the number of such persons has been growing over the years, that represents laxity of administration. To subject all teachers to this kind of transfers is high handed in the extreme. In any case such teachers do not constitute more than a small fraction of the total numbers. If all of them are sought to be punished, it amounts to undermining the whole edifice of education. Andhra Pradesh has found a very simple solution to this problem. Some transfers are made but only in the beginning of the academic year and never later. This practice is followed in most other states also except that, in Punjab and Haryana, this understanding is violated more often than is necessary. A radical change has been made in the system by Chandra Babu Naidu who won a famous victory in the recent election. All those people who want to be transferred are asked to report at the headquarters on a given date. No one other than the official concerned is there. At this meeting each person is asked to explain his plea for a transfer. The whole operation is open and transparent. Everybody puts forward his point of view and everyone has the opportunity to comment about it. After this exercise has been completed, there are hardly 5 per cent cases which require anything like a decision by the official concerned. Even in respect of such cases, decisions are not taken as per the usual bureaucratic manner. Instead, decisions are made and announced right at the spot. Everything is done so openly and so fairly that nobody gets red in the face and nobody has a sense of being victimised or anything of that kind. Teachers are very happy about the introduction of this system. It has taken away, so to speak, the power of the highhanded and/or corrupt bureaucrats and also of the self serving and unscrupulous politicians. Speaking for myself, I find it difficult to find any objection to this system. But may I suggest to the editor that he should invite objections to this proposal, if any, and let the issue be debated. If there are no objections to this system and the only losers are either the politicians or bureaucrats, it would be a distinct contribution to public welfare if this system is introduced from the next academic year. The second development is also worthy of emulation. It originated in Tamil Nadu and is now likely to spread to Andhra as well. One of the well known private organisations involved in computer education approached the Tamil Nadu government with the suggestion that they be allowed to make use of the premises of government schools in return for their providing both the hardware and the teachers to the schools during the day time. In other words, computers will be installed in government-run schools by this private body and the teachers too will be provided by the same body. During the day, students who wish to learn how to use the computers will have the opportunity to do so. After working hours, the outsiders will be permitted to make use of the facilities so created. To start with, 300 schools have been brought into this network. In course of time, the system is likely to get extended to more schools. In the case of the school students, however, there is a fee charged. It ranges from Rs 30 to Rs 60 and this depends upon the nature of the work which students will be doing. This fee has been instituted because it was felt that this was the only way of identifying serious students as compared to those who are not serious. The fee is not particularly high and, to some extent, is a token of the earnestness with which some students approach the job. There may be cases where some poor students are unable to pay even this much. In that case, the state can volunteer to pay on their behalf. Whether Tamil Nadu is following this practice or not, I cannot say. Were the system to be taken over in Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh, even J&K, there should be no difficulty about making some kind of help available to those students who are poor and cannot afford to pay. The system began in Tamil Nadu. According to reports, another such private organisation has approached the Andhra Pradesh government. It should not be difficult to visualise that before long something along the same lines will get going even in Andhra Pradesh. It may not be out of place here to refer to what happened in Punjab a few years ago. Some kind of a scheme in regard to providing computers to schools was worked out. While computers were provided by a private agency, the simultaneous availability of teachers was not ensured. In quite some schools, either teachers were not available or computers were available but not the teachers. In any case, the common impression all around was that the quality of computers provided was downright poor. Perhaps it was a case of some obsolete stock being unloaded upon the government. Those incharge of these arrangements were not vigilant enough or were downright accomplices and the outcome was anything but satisfactory. The Tamil Nadu model, as suggested above, takes care of the problem in a constructive way. Is it not possible for the various state governments to the north of Delhi to find out more about it what is being done in Tamil Nadu and evolve a model of computer education for their respective states? The intention is to spread computer education widely. If the private sector can be involved in a controlled kind of way, there should be nothing wrong with adopting the innovation which has been found acceptable elsewhere. What is destroying education in some states is the bureaucratic approach, the naked political pressure which is exerted every now and then and, no less disquieting, the unhelpful approach of the teachers. Let two things not be forgotten. One, teachers at least in Punjab and Haryana are better paid than in most other states. Two, despite all the handicaps, Himachal Pradesh has performed so well during the last few years that, in terms of the spread of literacy, it is generally mentioned in the same breath as Kerala, Mizoram, Tamil Nadu and Goa. (The writer is
an eminent educationist) |
Four legs of the elephant THE elephant motif has been historically significant with regard to India, and the trend has continued into current-day life. For instance, when the world was raving about the astounding progress of the South Asian tigers, the formulation was put forward that India was more like an elephant — admittedly slower and heavier, but surer and definitely more substantive. That, incidentally, turned out to be true when the tigers over-extended themselves and collapsed along the way, weak and toothless, until the International Monetary Fund set up a massive rescue operation. The same elephant motif has now crept into the rounds of the Indo-US talks that have been ongoing for months. When the series of talks between External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh and U.S. Deputy Secretary of state Strobe Talbott began, it was admittedly a bit rough around the edges. The US kept insisting on what they called the “benchmarks” that India would have to fulfil before relations could progress in any significant degree. As the dialogue has developed, however, mutual accommodation has grown in depth, and there has been a noticeable moderation in statements issued by both sides. The US is still seeking progress on the benchmarks: The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), the Fissile Material Control Treaty (FMCT), export control of nuclear and missile material and technology, and the nuclear defence posture. But it is a sign of the times that during and after the latest round of Jaswant Singh Strobe Talbott talks in London in mid-November, no one now employs the rather peremptory-sounding “Benchmarks.” That has been replaced by the term “The Four Legs of the Elephant.” The new concept gives the welcome impression that the pachyderm is more in control, able to decide when and how far to move each of its legs. There were some adverse reactions in India recently to a report President Clinton had submitted to Congress, in which he happened to mention that no concrete results had so far been achieved in the Indo-US dialogue. Clinton was right, but his report pertained more to the period before the London talks which, in turn, had been held up for 10 months due to the democratic elections in India and the military coup in Pakistan. Up until then, the talks had been a process of edging closer to narrow the gap, without premature publicity about “concrete” results. Although there was a 10-month hiatus in the Singh-Talbott meeting, confabulations at lower levels continued, and matters did advance. In fact, the progress reported by Administration officials at congressional hearings definitely contributed to the wider scope of the sanctions waiver authority given to President Clinton. Where exactly are we on the four legs of the elephant? Efforts are on by both sides to narrow differences on the CTBT. As for the US despite the setback of the Senate failing to ratify the treaty — a purely partisan move by Republican conservatives — the Administration has reiterated its determination to stick to its declared moratorium on further tests. Besides, the White House and the State Department have expressed their intention to continue to persuade waverers and hold-outs to climb on board. It is rather ironic that there was a time when the US used to point to the number of nations who have signed/ratified the CTBT as an incentive for India to do likewise. But now, US officials are trying to sell the point that by signing the treaty, India would be in the unique position of putting pressure on the US Senate to ratify it! Another US gambit to persuade India to sign appears to be in the works, although word of it has come unofficially. Senator Larry Pressler, author of the Pressler Amendment that finally shut off the US aid pipeline to Pakistan because of its nuclear weapons programme, said recently that American moves linked to the Clinton visit to India early next year might include the offer to revise the CTBT in order to alleviate India’s misgivings. As for as India is concerned, the government is committed to working out a consensus on the nation’s approach to CTBT — not an easy process in a democracy. Nonetheless, now that the partisan electoral heat has cooled, free and frank discussions on CTBT should be possible, keeping the national interest firmly in view. The FMCT is a less contentious issue. India agrees with the concept in principle. But it will be a few years before the treaty is fully thrashed out at the conference on disarmament in Geneva. In the interim, the US would like India to agree to a self-imposed moratorium on fissile material production and development. With an unstable Pakistan on one side and China, with its mushrooming missile development, on the other, India is understandably hesitant to shackle itself before a globally acceptable treaty comes into being. The matter of export control is one where the US has few worries: India has traditionally been extremely careful that its nuclear and missile expertise should not leak to other nations. But the US is correct in its stand that in view of the increasing resources and sophistication of terrorist outfits, every sane nation has to take further initiatives to ensure that “rogue” regimes and fundamentalist militant groups do not manage to get hold of material or knowhow that goes into the making of weapons of mass destruction. India is fully willing to cooperate in that endeavour. The fourth leg, the nuclear defence posture, is slightly more complex. India has put out a draft document on the subject by the National Security Advisory Board. The policy is still evolving and will emerge only after a thorough process of consultations and mid-course corrections. The problem is that the US would like India to delineate the contours of the “minimum deterrent” that New Delhi is determined to have. Obviously, India cannot and must not spell out the extent of its deterrent capabilities because the quantum of deterrence needed will depend on the perception of threat at any given time. Thus, the minimum deterrent is not a fixed sum, but a moving goal that is predicated upon developments in the region and beyond. The four legs are crucial to the negotiations, but other issues are also being sorted out. Now that a new and more empowered government is in place. India will embark on its economic liberalisation programme in a more purposeful manner. Lobbies representing insurance, banking and other financial services industries in the US can hardly conceal their glee. Much progress has also been made in coordinating the efforts of the two nations in tackling international and cross-border terrorism. Of late, the US side has let it be known that it will be more accommodating on the issue of World Bank loans to India. The softening of their earlier mule-headed stand on the issue was also due, in large measure, to the spate of letters to President Clinton from members of Congress pointing out the fallacy of holding up loans that would help rural India and contribute to enhanced business opportunity for American corporations. The Clinton Administration is also seriously looking into diluting the draconian “entities list” that restricts government and private entities in India from trading with the US in case they are even remotely linked to any nuclear or missile establishment. Under the regulation, even a store selling stationery, say, to the Indian Atomic Energy Commission’s office, would be banned from dealing with any US entity! A US inter-agency group met in the third week of November to re-examine the issue, and it is reasonably expected that the infamous Entities List will be de-fanged in a matter of a few days. Throughout the series of Indo-US talks, there have been many in India who are apprehensive that the “clever” Americans will run rings around the Indian delegation, which will then end up giving away the store for a pittance. But India has made it crystal clear, up front and eye-to-eye, that economic issues and security issues are entirely different and independent, and it will never trade one for the other. Thus, if the Americans were to say: “Sign the CTBT and we will remove all the sanctions,” it will not work because India has stood firm that the CTBT decision will be based exclusively on India’s security interests. (The writer is a
Washington-based analyst). |
Dynasty remains supreme in Cong
AMID much fanfare and publicity the Congress Party’s introspection committee presented its report to Sonia Gandhi last week. Cameras whirred, flashbulbs popped as she held it up for the television cameras and said with a coy smile; It’s very big...it’s a long report so let me read it first and then I will take the necessary action”. Meanwhile, her biggest loyalist, Mani Shankar Aiyer, also went on television to talk about the “radical changes” that had been proposed so that “our oldest political party can once more go back to those glory days when it was central to Indian politics”. Judging by the party’s conduct, though, in the week that Parliament convened for its winter session, it can be said with certainty that introspection or not, hefty report or not, nothing is going to change. It is going to remain what it has been for many years — a vehicle for the political ambitions of the Nehru-Gandhi family rather than a proper political party. So, instead of the terrible devastation in Orissa it was the supposed defilement of Rajiv Gandhi’s memory that galvanised the Congress into action. As soon as Parliament opened we had the walkout over Rajiv Gandhi’s name still being in the Bofors chargesheet. This was apparently not considered enough of a protest so we also had a rally that blocked traffic in central Delhi for hours. Then we had the extraordinary situation of the party resorting to blackmailing the government in its desperation to have Rajiv’s name removed. If you remove his name we will help you pass important legislation like the insurance Bill, if not we will block everything in the Rajya Sabha. The significance of these actions is that if there was anyone in Sonia’s inner circle with the courage to speak frankly he would have advised her not to go off on a tangent on Bofors when for more important things like the Orissa cyclone needed to be addressed. If there was anything worthy of rallies and walkouts it should have been the shameful politicisation of the relief effort in Orissa. Similarly, if she had surrounded herself with genuine political advisers instead of sycophants, she would have been told that linking Bofors to the insurance Bill was unwise and would harm the party’s image. Since nobody had the courage to tell her, though, she went ahead with dropping her little hints about how Congress would cooperate on legislation only if the government cooperated on Bofors. When the Prime Minister refused to budge the Congress found itself in the uncomfortable position of having to backtrack publicly. But, by then it had become clear to everyone that not only was the party not serious about its supposed commitment to economic reforms but that there were deep divisions within it over issues like the insurance Bill. Now, think, if Sonia Gandhi has nobody around her who can give her candid advice on relatively innocuous issues is there any likelihood of the Introspection Committee telling the truth? An attempt appears to have been made if reports leaking out of Congress headquarters are to be believed. According to my sources there were people in the 11-member committee who wanted the report to include references to the fact that Sonia’s Italian birth and her inexperience were mentioned among the reasons why the party did so badly in the election. A.K. Antony and P.M. Sayeed are mentioned among those who would have liked to tell the truth. But, in the end sycophancy prevailed. In Sonia’s Congress Party it always does. So, although the party’s senior leaders have no hesitation in telling journalists exactly what they think, they would not dream of telling it to her. One Congressman, who naturally requested anonymity, described for me what meetings with Sonia are usually like. “Before you go in to see her” he said “you go and see George (V. George, her chief factotum), even if you are a senior leader, you see him first. He then tells you what you should say to her and what her mood is like. She never says anything, she just listens”. Everyone granted an audience by the Congress President, even journalists, know the rules of the game. You are there either because you are a loyalist already or because you are seen as a prospective loyalist. Journalists who dare to criticise Sonia are on an unwritten blacklist and have never been invited to the cozy little tea parties that she regularly throws. And, loyalist Congressmen you meet make it a point to tell you that you are not in favour. These are tactics so extreme that even the original Mrs Gandhi never used them. In such an atmosphere how can we expect major changes in the Congress Party? How can we begin to expect that the party will encourage leaders in its state units who are genuine leaders and not merely loyalist? If proof was needed of this it comes in the recent treatment of the Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh. He is possibly the only real regional leader left in the Congress but because he was seen as “getting too big for his boots” dissidence against him was not just encouraged but was not condemned by the high command. Yet, without genuine leaders how does the party expect to win the next round? Only, in the old way which is by selling itself as the party of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty but here we come back to the main problem: Is Sonia seen as the real heir of the dynasty or does her foreignness and lack of political experience preclude this? Even dynasty loyalists recognise this as a problem hence the promotion of Priyanka as tomorrow’s Congress Prime Minister. Meanwhile, though, senior party leaders sulk quietly in various corners and speak with forked tongues, they say one thing to Sonia and quite the opposite to everyone else. In the words of yet another Congress politician, “Please observe that even in Parliament senior leaders have moved to the background and it is only the loyalists who surround Mrs Gandhi”. It should be safe to
say, then, that no matter how many hours the Congress
President spends ploughing through the Introspection
panel’s report she will learn nothing that will make
a difference. She will learn nothing because nobody in
her inner circle dares to tell her anything that remotely
resembles the truth. |
No safety in number of shows
FROM time to time both DD and the private channels revise their decisions on the number of programmes which a weekly serial deserves. I think the initial number for DD was the rather apt number 13, which is the unlucky number although it proved to be extremely lucky for the favoured few. Soon 13 is multiplied until it reaches 52 and a producer has bagged a full year-ful of programmes. Some are so lucky that they get into three figures even before they have started mostly serials on religion and history (however mythical) which have an easy walk-over. As an example of a serial which has defeated itself by having too many twists and turns introduced to prolong the agony of both the characters and the viewer is Saans. It started off being taut, coherent and utterly credible but now, with each episode it gets a new twist which, if I may be allowed to mix my metaphors, has tied it up in knots. It all started with the unlikely twist of Priya even considering marrying Ajit Sir. That a woman of such refinement and courage would even look at that scruffy fellow with carrot-coloured hair was unthinkable. It set many people not only against the serial but against Priya, for whom they had built up a good deal of admiration and sympathy, this viewer included. If I watch it any more, it is because I am professionally intrigued about how it will end and how long Nina Gupta can flog it. Next to good serials being killed with kindness what is really getting out of bounds is the daily dose to which we are subjected by the likes of Shekhar Suman, who is not above taking part in several other programmes simultaneously. It is all very well being so popular and commanding astronomical fees which are the envy of others who do a daily dozen, but usually such cases end up as burnt out cases. In the world of cinema there is the classic example of Dilip Kumar, who picked and chose his films and spaced them to keep everyone on tenterhooks. Playing hard to get usually pays much more than being easily accessible. The opening of DD’s News Channel has proved to be a bonanza for anyone ambitious for instant TV stardom to make a bid for a programme. And DD has been equally quick to hand out programmes indiscriminately so that, added to the bad reception, bad timing and bad scheduling, we have bad programmes galore. Some potential good programmes have been killed by being given a daily slot. Such as Kiran Kher’s interview programme which, in spite of all sorts of permutations and combinations, has begun to pall. After a time, such programmes, with so many other channels around doing the same thing with the same people, soon become a bore. Another casualty of the proliferation of channels and lack of new names and faces is that both channels and TV personalities are losing their identity. It is a sound principle for both channels and personalities such as anchors to stick together. In sophisticated countries, one identifies an anchor with a channel. And when there is a break, it is a clean break. When Barry Norman left the BBC (alas!) he became exclusive to the channel carried by Star. But here in India, with no channel willing to take chances, we find Vir Sanghvi, Karan Thapar and even Prannoy Roy, so closely identified with a particular, channel, doubling up for other channels. Exclusivity is the hall-mark of quality broadcasting. And one would have wished that even if the channels did not care, the anchors would. But they seem just as eager to join the rat race. I would therefore like to take off my hat to Rajat Sharma who, alone of the star anchors, has had the courage, the dignity and the single-mindedness, to stick to Star after he left Zee, except for a very occasional sortie to DD for a special programme. Rajat has kept both his own identity and that of the channel intact, instead of confusing the viewer as others have done. I only have space to
mention the outstanding discussion on the legal system in
last Friday’s Question Time India on the BBC.
Eminent legal luminaries Fali Nariman, Ashok Desai, K.K.
Venugopal and Raian Karanjawala were astonishingly frank
about the law’s delays, did not spare the various
branches of their profession from judiciary to lawyers
and made constructive suggestion for the future. |
December
4, 1924 THE statement which Maulana Mahomed Ali has just issued convening a meeting on the 24th at Bombay to consider the recommendation made in the joint statement and inviting other public bodies to send representatives to the meeting is admirable both in its substance and its phraseology. As our readers are aware, we have urged again and again the supreme necessity at this critical juncture of all the best minds in the country, irrespective of party and sectional differences’ putting their heads together and devising measures by which the country may offer a united front to the bureaucracy and make a united endeavour to attain self-government. Mr. Mahomed Ali’s appeal is an excellent first step in this direction. We do hope all the several public bodies will send representatives to the meeting. We are particularly glad in this connection that the President has also invited the representatives of the European and the Anglo-Indian Association. In the India of today
Europeans and Anglo-Indians have just as much their place
as Hindus and Musalmans, and no stone should be left
unturned to give every possible facility to them to make
common cause with the later. |
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