P A G E
Monday, November 1, 1999
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E D I T O R I A L P A G E |
Monday, November 1, 1999 |
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Easy
but costly credit
TALE OF TWO IAS OFFICERS
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A
collective mea culpa by apex court
Focus
on Pope’s visit: threats subside
Travelling
without trucks
November 1, 1924 |
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Easy but costly credit RBI Governor Bimal Jalan is a non-doctrinaire, cautious economist and it shows in the busy season credit policy and the dilemmas inherent in it. He has pumped in more than Rs 8000 crore into the system by cutting by 1 per cent the CRR (cash reserve ratio), the money every bank has to deposit with the RBI as a bulwark against a sudden run on it. But he has left the interest rate untouched, only allowing banks to offer minor concessions to a select group of financial institutions and those providing housing loans. His explanation for not bringing down the interest rate is revealing. It also focuses on the structural distortions. The prime lending rate rules at 12 per cent, it is a benchmark and commercial banks align their rate to this. He says the government guarantees a return of 11 per cent or 12 per cent through the small savings and other schemes. If the banks reduce the yield, the depositors will shift their accounts. It is a big deterrent to making bank credit cheaper. In other words, the RBI’s freedom to hike or lower the interest rate is more notional than real; the government has willy-nilly usurped that power. Again, successive Finance Minister’s lament that the RBI is not dynamic enough is hypocritical. There are also other reasons behind the persistent high rate. The non-interest charge on banks is very high; they are over-staffed and their loans — collectively over Rs 45,000 crore — have become bad debts and are not earning any interest. They are committed to paying 12 per cent or more on fixed deposits and other such accounts. Finally, the operating expenses are around 3 per cent as against the international average of half that. None of the factors is likely to change in the near future and that means credit will continue to be costly by international standard s. Economic theory has it that the interest rate should be equivalent to the inflation rate plus, say, 3 per cent. Right now the real inflation rate, the one based on retail prices and compiled by the Labour Ministry, is less than 3 per cent and is expected to creep up to 5 per cent in the coming weeks and months. This indicates that the interest rate can be about 8 per cent but it will never be. The banking system in this country is too rigid to admit any long-term change. The RBI report tried to
crank up some cheer by stressing on the lower CRR. But it
did not click. The central bank believes that the entire
additional funds available with the banks amounting to Rs
8000 crore and more will go to stimulate investment and
industrial growth. Dr Jalan talked of a sustained demand
for funds. But the reality is not that rosy. Economic
recovery is yet to gather pace and consumer spending and
not bank loans can spur it. This is evident from what
bankers have said. They are nearly unanimous that they
will buy government securities which will give a return
of about 11 per cent, leaving a margin of about 3 per
cent over the deposit mobilisation cost of about 8 per
cent. An analyst has calculated that credit offtake has
been sluggish this financial year, just about 5 per cent,
and the picture will not change dramatically in the
remaining months. But bankers are not complaining. The
CRR gives them a measly 4 per cent and one bank hopes to
earn Rs 20 crore more in the next five months and
believes the profit of all banks will shoot up by 3 per
cent in a full year. Will not the injection of a huge
volume of money stroke price rise? Dr Jalan says no and
points out that money in circulation has increased by a
mere 16 per cent compared to 21 per cent last year. He is
right but money supply growth is not so low as 16 per
cent. The government has been spending as though there is
no tomorrow. It has already exhausted the limit on
borrowing and the revenue collection is lagging badly.
Thus there is no chance of the fiscal deficit remaining
at 4 per cent. This can ignite inflation and that will
blow up the lingering chance of bringing the interest
rate down and giving a powerful shove to economic
recovery. |
A significant judgement THE Bombay High Court last week gave a significant ruling on the right of non-Hindu couples to adopt a child. Under the existing laws only Hindus have the legal right to apply for the adoption of a child under the provisions of the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act,1956. Non-Hindus can only act as guardians and not seek legal adoption of children placed in their care. However, the Bombay High Court invoked the doctrine of equality while allowing the appeal of a Christian couple to legally adopt the child they had brought up as guardians. Mr Justice F. I. Rebello in his order stated that since the jurisdiction to pass orders of guardianship is with the district and high courts, pending legislation, they would have the right to give the child in adoption by way of a miscellaneous application in the petition for guardianship. The court directed that a period of two years must be allowed between the date when guardianship is allowed and the petition for legal adoption. Many jurists and lawyers would agree with the observation that the order granting non-Hindu childless couples the legal right to adoption is part of the robust trend of judicial activism for covering the loopholes in the existing legislation on the subject. The Bombay High Court, while giving the path-breaking judgement, considered the question whether a civilised state committed to the rule of law, governed by a written Constitution and being a signatory to the international conventions on the rights of children, could deny a section of its own citizens the right to adopt a child and give that child a name, home and nationality. A major reason why the adoption rights have been denied to non-Hindus has something to do with the personal laws of other religions. For instance, under
various schools of Islamic laws, adopted children can
have no claim over the property of their non-biological
parents. In fact, under Shia personal law a child whose
father dies in the lifetime of the child’s paternal
grandfather cannot legally claim his share in the family
property. The logic for excluding an orphaned child from
claiming a share in the common property is simple. The
property or the share in the property which was not
inherited by the father (due to early death) cannot pass
on to his offspring. The Bombay High Court has tried to
resolve the problems arising out of the obvious conflict
of interpretation between the civil laws and personal
laws. But the clergy may still create hurdles for
childless couples seeking the legal right to adoption
through a religious edict forbidding them from violating
the provisions of the personal laws. Nevertheless, the
Bombay High Court made it clear that the legal
consequences of an order of adoption will be that the
personal law of adoptive parents would be applicable to
the child whose right of inheritance will be the same as
that of a natural-born child. The court also took the
abundant precaution of directing the authority concerned
that before making an order of adoption it should ensure
that the petitioners fulfil the prescribed conditions. It
should also obtain the views of the Indian Council for
Social Welfare. A similar petition was moved over a year
ago by a Muslim woman in Delhi whose guardianship right
stood terminated after the child became an adult. Even if
the verdict goes in her favour, will she be able fight
the obscurantist elements who compelled Rajiv Gandhi to
introduce a piece of legislation for denying to Shah Bano
the right to maintenance granted to her by the judiciary? |
TALE OF TWO IAS OFFICERS THIS is the story of two IAS officers of the Madhya Pradesh cadre. One felt suffocated in the “system”, tried to remould it, but failed and took voluntary retirement. The other accepted the “system” as it is but chose the medium of poetry to trigger off an air of resistance to acts of injustice and oppression. Mr Ajay Singh Yadav, belonging to the 1976 batch, still had more than 16 years of service left when he took voluntary retirement in 1998. He contested the Lok Sabha election as an Independent from the Bhopal constituency this year and received 1759 votes. He has written a book, “Why I am not a civil servant”, in which he has chronicled his experiences. Mr B.K.S. Ray, who joined the IAS in 1972, has just brought out an anthology of his 222 poems under the title “Dream Songs & Shadows”. Mr Ray is at present Managing Director of MP State Warehousing Corporation. Mr Yadav says he was not like the average officer. “What distinguished me from others was not superior ability. It was rather an inability to obey orders without examining their rationale, to take things on sufferance, to accept conventional wisdom without questioning.” Mr Yadav remembers himself, way back in 1975, as a postgraduate student of English literature at Delhi University “doing rather poorly in studies”. His father, being an officer of the Indian Police Service, “had often been at the receiving end of the arrogant presumption of the IAS officers and had probably come to believe in the myth of their superiority”. It was thus at his father’s suggestion that Mr Yadav took the civil services examination and was selected. Mr Yadav’s disillusionment with the elite service began even as he was undergoing training at the National Academy of Administration at Mussoorie. He says that the actual course content includes only a general study of the Indian Penal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure; a very general study of the bureaucracy based on the theories of Max Weber; almost nothing on public finance and theories of economic growth. “In short, the professional and academic part of the training tended to be of undergraduate level and rather amateurish. “As far as moral instruction was concerned, there was “nothing of this beyond a few pious platitudes about the ethic of service”. Mr Yadav had been a Collector (Deputy Commissioner) for a number of years, had been the head of many departments and was secretary to the government when he took the voluntary retirement. His chief recollection of his tenure as Collector is of being surrounded by people all the time — not the important people of the district, or the power brokers or the hangers on. They were the common people of the district — farmers, labourers, mechanics or factory workers. “They came as usual with all kinds of problems and they expected me to solve them. Many of them came from far corners of the district, some brought their own bundles of firewood with them, knowing that they would not be able to get back the same day and prepared for an overnight stay. Many came clutching bundles of papers yellowed with age, dog-eared and begrimed with much use. These papers were usually orders passed in their favour by some court or authority — orders which perhaps had still not been implemented. The sight of old limbs burdened with such a weight of woe, old eyes clouded with so much despair, was enough to touch any heart, however, hardened.” Mr Yadav says that he does not want to give the impression that a sentimental regard for the people is all that is needed to make a success of one’s job. There is much more to it than that. Conventional wisdom holds that the Collector should be an independent authority — above party politics and quite detached from the political agenda of a government, which after all is formed by a political party. The people expect the Collector to function in a neutral manner, but the government expects him to toe the official line. And this line is not always to help the poor, the honest. Mr Yadav cites the instance of a particular person who had managed to forge a “patta” in his favour and by virtue of the forged instrument had obtained the possession of some prime land in the heart of the town. This was known to everyone, including the authorities, yet no one did anything because this person had powerful connections in the ruling party. As Mr Yadav was all set to removing the encroachment, following the procedure laid down in the law, his home guard jawan, whose job it was to attend the phone, appeared before him, all in a flutter, and said, “Sir, the Chief Minister is on the line”. The function of a secretary to the government, he says, is to aid and advise the minister in the discharge of his responsibility which is to say that the secretary, in fact, does nothing. He only advises, and if his advice is rejected, he does not fume and fret, but like a good civil servant takes up some other matter. Yet, it is rare these days to hear of a minister accepting responsibility on account of any lapse. A minister, he recalls, had gone against the advice of the departmental secretary and made a large purchase order at a highly inflated cost. The subordinate officers had either colluded with the minister or had been brow-beaten into acquiescence. The departmental secretary had been overruled. The material that was to be supplied had probably never reached its destination. A case was made out for an enquiry by the Lokayukta. Within hours of submitting the file to the Lokayukta, the minister got wind of the developments. Mr Yadav writes, “I received a telephone call from my official superior who was in Delhi and had been given a dressing down by the CM..... The next morning I received a phone call from the Chief Secretary, asking me to recall the file from the Lokayukta. This, I pointed out to him, would be highly improper. But he was insistent. I then put up the matter to him in writing, pointing out that such a step would be unprecedented and would bring disrepute to the state government if it became known. But back came my note with a written order that the offending file be recalled. The secretary to the Lokayukta, who had been sounded out in advance by the government, proved amenable and returned the file to which he should have clung like a leech.” Mr B.K.S. Ray is not burdened with ethical questions as a civil servant but has a dispassionate look at the “system” in his poem, “A Bureaucrat’s Armour”: File pads Mr Ray belongs to Bhubaneswar and his loyalty is divided between Orissa and Madhya Pradesh. He marvels at Khajuraho when he sees: “Curved-carved stone images/Sing beauty’s licentiousness”. The very next moment he becomes nostalgic about Konark: “Intimate smells of stone-wheels carry souls of unknown craftsmen/On the surface of the majestic Sun God”. Gradually Mr Ray transgresses the boundaries of Orissa and Madhya Pradesh and wanders all over the world to express the restlessness of his inner self. He is fascinated by revolutionary ideas: the Right-Left divide; Albert Camus; Stonehenge; Nietzsche; Kosovo; Indian Restaurants in London; The Yorkshire Spirit; The Boy from Hungary; Problems of Lovers; Pavements in Calcutta; Nirad C. Chaudhuri. Finally, he has his own vision of Life After Kargil. Mr Ray tries to live
between hope and despair which he finds an integral part
of existence. He says, “I have a hunger for human
relationships and known, unknown faces move me
deeply”. He draws what resembles a self-portrait in
his poem, “Within Me”. Its last stanza: “I
am happy within the pages of sorrow/And see shadows of
sorrow in happy moments/Greenery and deserts invade my
dreams/ I am a family man/wedded to call of the
wild.” |
The truth about economy PEOPLE responsible for the running of the government as well as its critics are agreed on one point that the government has no option but to take a number of harsh economic measures. However, the average citizen is not aware as to why these harsh economic measures are needed when a firm government has been installed at the Centre. The recent hike in the price of diesel has led to hue and cry all over. Other harsh measures, which are waiting to be implemented in the immediate future, are likely to invite more anger of the average citizen. For almost 50 years the ruling parties have been encouraging populist measures to keep their so-called vote banks intact; they have resorted to harsh measures only when they have been driven to the wall. Similarly, the role of the opposition parties have all along been to speak vociferously on non-issues but contribute very little to debate on real economic issues facing the country. Even when the opposition parties came to power at the Centre, they started indulging in the same kind of games. However, all these years people have been kept in the dark about the unintended consequences of their various economic decisions. The important economic decisions, which are seldom popular with the citizens, taken at the right time would not have led to the situation as we find today. During the past 52 years no government has been able to control revenue deficit despite wishful announcements. As a result, the successive governments have been borrowing heavily from the market to meet their current expenditure. Apart from the maintenance of law and order, a major portion of the non-Plan expenditure goes to meeting the needs of the defence and interest payments on government borrowings. In the mid-eighties the economists had pointed out that more than half of the then current government revenues went to meeting the expenditure on defence and interest payments. During the same period the expenditure on defence was more than the interest payments. Gradually, interest payments as a component of government expenditure started overriding defence expenditure. Today interest payment as a percentage of the GDP is more than the expenditure on defence. Economists have pointed out that during the current financial year the government will shell out Rs 88,000 crore to meeting its interest obligations while the gross market borrowing will cross Rs 100,000 crore by the end of this year. It is further estimated that if the payment of the principal is added to the interest bill, the debt servicing obligations will eat up 135 per cent of the current tax collections. The financial health of the states is getting from bad to worse. Almost all the states are spending more than what they are able to corner by way of tax and non-tax revenues, including their share of central taxes and grants. It is reported that in 1998-99, 26 states ran up a collective fiscal deficit of Rs 59,776 crore which amounted to 17.50 per cent over the previous years’ deficit. As a percentage of the GDP it worked out to 3.70. Two factors are responsible for this kind of a situation and both have to do with the politics of populism in its various forms. At one level almost all the governments in the past have seldom paid attention to the efficient management of the affairs of the state. With the desire of the government to try to control every aspect of economy and society, it has unnecessarily put its finger in every pie with the result that the bureaucracy is expanding all the time but doing nothing. Take, for instance, the case of the Ministry of Education (now a component of the Ministry of HRDP). This ministry has been there for the past 50 years which has seen a number of senior bureaucrats come and go, and yet a large percentage of the Indian population is still illiterate. In comparison to this, Russia and China eradicated illiteracy within the first 10 years of the establishment of a communist government there. Similarly, when the Reserve Bank of India is there to monitor and regulate the banking system, what is the need for a separate department of banking in the Ministry of Finance? The obvious explanation is to keep one more post of Secretary and the accompanying entourage alive. To the best of our knowledge, no other country has a department of banking in the Ministry of Finance; the affairs of the banking industry are looked after by the respective central banks. Though the governments have been talking of reducing the size of the bureaucracy, none has been able to muster the necessary political courage to make this move. Hence the burgeoning bill on the bureaucracy. The second factor has been the inability of the successive governments to dismantle the regime of administered prices and subsidies. No government has ever told the public as to what is the purpose of administered prices and subsidies as of now. These short-term palliatives, which were introduced in the early years of our economic development, have been allowed to continue for five decades without any rational explanation, so much so that powerful interest groups have emerged and they will not let them go under any circumstances. Since everything is hidden from the public view, nobody knows what is happening in this area. Take the case of petroleum products. It is common knowledge that we are a net importer of petroleum products as domestic production is not enough to meet our current demand. We have to pay for these products at the international prices. Logically speaking, there is no case for providing any subsidy or cross subsidy to any section of society on these products. These products could have been sold at their commercial prices with the international prices falling or rising. What have we done? The price of petrol in the domestic market has been kept at almost three times its price in other countries while the prices of cooking gas, the diesel and kerosene have been kept lower than the international levels. There is no rational economic explanation for this kind of pricing policy. The opposition to the hike in diesel price would not have arisen if we had kept the prices of all the petroleum products in consonance with the international level all these years. Similarly, there is no rational explanation for providing subsidies on all sorts of agriculture inputs and then providing another subsidy on the sale of foodgrains and other products. Because of these subsidies we have been sending wrong signals to the farmers as well as the consumers. There are various other ways to help the farmers and the consumers, but the vested interests around the subsidies have hardened so much that no government has been able to think of any alternative. Therefore, in spite of taking harsh measures on the economic front this year and the next financial year, the government should, instead, come out with a detailed white paper on the expenditure on administration as well as on the administered prices and subsidies. The general public should be made aware of the problems that have arisen because of the regime of administered prices as well as subsidies and that, why it is essential to dismantle this regime and replace it with a regime of natural prices. The people must also be
told as to what price they will have to pay to dismantle
this outdated regime of administered prices and
subsidies. At the same time the government must ensure
that the vulnerable sections of society are not hurt
during this transitional period. — INFA |
Travelling
without trucks SRI LAL SHUKLA, the award-winner litterateur who gave us his magnum opus "Raag Durbari", must have been the happiest man when the trucks were off the road till the other day. He could have had a totally different kind of experience. "Raag Durbari's" opening paragraph mentions the Indians roads being "raped by the trucks". The recent strike by truck operators surely afforded the roads some relief, at least. I had a full two hours' sleep travelling on GT Road while on the way to Chandigarh, lying reconciled on the back seat of my official Ambassador. Not the least was I disturbed in my fancy delight, with the honks and blares of horns, musical and otherwise, normally blown by truckers, beyond the tolerable decibel level. There were no sideway jerks. There was no occasion for the driver to either speed up his vehicle while overtaking a a king of the roads or to slow down for fear of being crushed from behind. For the first time, I heard the driver hum a popular number of yesteryear, "Ye raastay hain pyar kay, chalna sambhal-sambhal kay!". Not even once did my driver stop to have a cup of tea to ward off sleepiness and exhaustion, nor did he cup his eyes with his palms to soothen the glare-tormented vision. For a change, I witnessed the man at the steering-wheel really enjoying the drive without being cautioned by a white-delivered me. "Hay, mind your side....slow, slow slow... truck overtaking us...cut, cut, cut...hang on... you don't have a catch a flight... it's me who would be late and not you...!" This has been my routine during a road travel while pressing and withdrawing my own feet against the floor of the vehicle out of reflex action. Dhaba-owners had a field day and did roaring business, feeding the truck-crew who rested on the spread cots, ordering "tandoories" "bhujji" (omelette) of a dozen eggs, fried dall, aaloo-paranthas and all that. A wine shop near the dhaba was an added attraction. The only thing you could miss was the good sense of humour the trucks offer to road-users with some graffiti written on their backs (no pun meant, please). It is high time road
safety fora conducted a survey to assess the road damage
which is generally blamed on the "incorrigible truck
drivers". |
A collective mea culpa by apex court
“TO perpetuate an error is no virtue,” said the Supreme Court last week, October 27, “but to correct it is a compulsion of judicial conscience.” And proceeded to correct one of the most grievous errors ever committed in the history of the Supreme Court — the conviction (and imprisonment) without trial of Haryana Superintendent of Police, M.S. Ahlawat in January, 1996. An IPS officer of the 1987 batch, Ahlawat was hauled up for filing false affidavits in reply to a petition for habeas corpus moved under Article 32. Apart from constituting contempt of court, the act involved an offence under Section 193, IPC (giving or fabricating false evidence in judicial proceedings). That is an offence triable by a magistrate under the Code of Criminal Procedure, on a complaint being filed by the court before whom the evidence is given. A regular trial, that is, with examination and cross-examination of witnesses and all that. Followed, in the event of conviction, by a statutory right of appeal to the Court of Sessions. And further avenues of redress, though discretionary, to the High Court and Supreme Court. But Ahlawat was a police officer and the court saw red. Determined to teach the likes of him a lesson, it saw no reason to follow the law. The cumbersome, dilatory procedure of the law which not a few men, judges included, view more as an impediment in the way of than an assurance of criminal justice. The affidavits said to be false had been filed in the Supreme Court. And Ahlawat was “tried”, convicted and punished by the Supreme Court itself. And despatched to Burail jail, Chandigarh, for a year’s rigorous imprisonment under Section 193, IPC. It was a popular decision, like all judicial decisions of those days. Not a word of dissent, not a whisper of protest. Except for yours truly in this column. “Since Ahlawat had perjured himself before the Supreme Court,” I wrote on January 29, 1996, 12 days after the verdict, “the Supreme Court was at best a complainant. How could the complainant turn into the Judge and convict the accused, and that too without holding any trial? Affidavits and counter-affidavits before the Supreme Court are no substitute for witnesses at the trial. And there being no court higher than the Supreme Court, whom does Ahlawat now appeal to?” The requirements of a regular trial under the CrPC of an offence under Section 193, IPC are not niceties of procedure (I wrote), but the fundamentals of a civilised criminal justice system. “How could the Supreme Court, incensed by Ahlawat’s conduct, have dispensed with them all?” It could not, the court has now admitted three years after Ahlawat completed his tenure in jail, his career ruined and his spirit broken by the rule of law. This court, ruled a three-member Bench headed by the Chief Justice of India last week, “does not exercise any original criminal jurisdiction in relation to offences arising under Section 193, IPC.” Moreover, the seriousness of the charge arising under that Section “requires (it said) an elaborate inquiry and trial by the competent criminal court”. A “summary inquiry by merely issuing a show-cause notice, and considering affidavits or inquiry reports, would not (be) tantamount to a procedure provided under the Criminal Procedure Code.” The inquiry reports alluded to are, one, a report by the District Judge, Faridabad, absolving Ahlawat and, two, another by the CBI raising a “strong suspicion” (but only a suspicion) of his complicity in forgery. The CBI report could, at the best, form the basis of Ahlawat’s prosecution before a competent criminal court. A two-member Bench of the Supreme Court, headed by Justice K. Ramaswamy, used it to convict Ahlawat straightaway, all by itself. Without as much as allowing Ahlawat a peep into the report. Never was natural justice more flagrantly violated by a court of law, with more fateful consequences for the liberty of an individual. The conviction was no less curious on the merits. Both the District Judge and CBI found that a subordinate official, Head Constable Krishan Kumar had forged Ahlawat’s signatures on an affidavit filed in court. One of the two false affidavits for filing which Ahlawat was convicted by the Supreme Court had, thus, not been signed by Ahlawat at all! The other only denied that the signatures were his and maintained that they had been forged. The CBI suspected and the court was convinced, however, that Ahlawat had orally directed the Head Constable to forge his signatures and that his subsequent denial was false. Even if factually true, that raises an interesting legal question. Can a person be held guilty of forging, or of abetting the forgery of, his own signature? But it was the court’s ultimate decision which took the cake. The forger, Head Constable Krishan Kumar was “exonerated” of the charge under Section 193, IPC, while Ahlawat, the abettor, was convicted and slapped with a year’s rigorous imprisonment! The conviction and sentence were vacated last week, in an act of judicial expiation that does credit to the new Supreme Court of India. Setting aside all technicalities (for Ahlawat’s review petition already stood dismissed). “When a litigant complains of miscarriage of justice,” said the three-member Bench, “by exercise of powers of this Court which is without jurisdiction, or not after following due procedure, resulting in his incarceration in a prison losing valuable liberty for a period with the attendant catastrophe descending on his career and life, we have no option but to examine the correctness of his contentions.” (More on this
next week.) |
Focus on Pope’s visit: threats subside
NEEDLESS to write that this coming week, focus will remain on Pope John Paul II’s forthcoming visit to New Delhi, beginning on November 5. And though, at least for the time being, disruption threats issued by the VHP and the RSS have subsided and assurances from the government have been issued but, then, an uncertainty does lurk. Also, stands out the fact that the Ministry of External Affairs has ‘advised’ Vice President Krishan Kant not to attend the All Faiths Meet to be addressed and attended by the Pope on November 7. In fact this move of the MEA has shocked many for where was the need to keep away the Vice President of India from a seemingly harmless meet of inter - religious dialogue. And other queries doing the rounds are: Who has directed the MEA to issue this so called advice? What will be the implications of this stand? What signals does it send out to the Christian community at large? The season has just begun ... As they say the season has just begun and the mood is upbeat. Midweek attended the book release function of Bulbul Sharma’s latest novel “Banana Flower Dreams”. In fact, I was certain that focus of this novel would directly or indirectly be on Reiki because Bulbul not only practises it but is one of those Reiki healers who doesn’t charge; her strong belief is that the day you do so the healing power(s) would vanish. Instead, the focus of this novel is on women. And so at the launch it wasn’t very surprising to see many of the city’s successful women. Men too were spotted and prominent amongst them were Ved Marwah, M S Gill and David Davidar. From there I went to attend the national day of Austria and, as expected, the lawns at the residence of the Austrian Ambassador, Mr Herbert Traxl, couldn’t have contained more people. And, though I reached late, only at the fag end of the reception, most of the guests were still there as though in no mood to move. Not to forget mentioning that Delhi’s old men were at their flirtatious best (of course, I’m being sarcastic, before some of them get encouraged...) and the not-so-old-ones trying best to strike contacts or contracts. And for some peculiar reason I found women ogling too. No, not at the old and not-so-old men around but at the food spread out. Then, complete bewilderment awaited as I went around the ‘Jewellery & Watch Exhibition ’99’. Held amidst tight security bandobasts in one of the halls of Pragati Maidan’s International Exhibition Complex, 150 jewellery firms and shops (they prefer to call them studios) had spread out the latest from the jewellery and gem range. As one of the organisers elaborated “more than 100,000 jewellery designs and styles in categories of 24 carat gold, gold studded, diamond and other hand crafted jewellery are on display...” And though the entry ticket was priced at a high Rs 100 per person and the particular day I had visited this exhibition it was a working day (black Monday to be exact) but several hundred visitors were stuffed in this hall. In fact one peep into this particular hall and all those facts about our poverty levels and talks about the pathetic living conditions could be put on the high shelf. And as though to backup this jewellery fever a quarterly magazine, exclusively for jewellery lovers has been launched here. Titled “The Gems & Jewellery Magazine” it has the widest possible range, including a query column. And next week begins the 43rd congress of the Union Internationalale Des Advocats. In fact this is the first time that a UIA congress is being held in an Asian country and I am told that efforts have been made to expose the delegates to an entire range of our classical forms. And in keeping with this each evening, from November 3 to 7, five maestros will present the different classical dance forms. These would include Uma Sharma’s Kathak, Raja and Radha Reddy’s Kuchipudi, Guru Singhajit and Charu Mathur’s Manipuri, Bharati Shivaji’s Mohiniattam. Whose responsibility are they? And here in New Delhi, almost on a pleading mission, are several citizens from Kargil and Batalik regions. They had no choice but to travel this long distance for who would listen to them in Kargil (the J & K Chief Minister is, anyway, away on a foreign tour or trip). Not that till date — till the day of my filing this column — any of the Delhi based political heads have responded to their pleas. Simple pleas for food, shelter, clothing and the compensation promises be fulfilled and not remain on paper alone. Probably the only person from Bollywood who was here to talk to them was Mahesh Bhatt. Where are our political
men? Where are those who got votes on the tragedy of war
and destruction? Where lies the conscience of those
manning sensitive departments, supposedly functioning for
human (resource) development — if not for their very
survival? |
November
1, 1924 MR C.R. DAS was perfectly right in saying that the action of Lord Reading is not merely a challenge to the Swarajists but to the Congress and the country also. How are the Congress and the country going to meet this challenge? In our opinion, an emergency meeting of the All-India Congress Committee should be summoned immediately to decide upon the form of protest which should be made against the new policy. Bengal has already decided upon a hartal on Friday next. Whether the observance of a hartal is the best way of recording the country’s protest is a question which the All-India Congress Committee alone can decide. What is certain is that the protest should be national and not merely provincial and should be made on behalf of all sections of the community and all political parties. From this point of view,
it would be good if the Congress could in this matter ask
for and obtain the cooperation of the Councils and
Executive Committees of all political and sectional
organisations in the country. Here, at any rate, there is
no room for a difference of opinion. |
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