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Saturday,
November 3, 2001,
Chandigarh, India   |
Restraint on border tension Hostile witnesses The killer amidst us |
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Vagaries of unilateralist policies
Chickening out
Remembering unsung heroes
After Tehelka,
repression
‘See time, I’m ovulating’
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Restraint on border tension VIPs from the USA, Europe, Russia and Japan are making a beeline to New Delhi. It will appear as though India is becoming a new centre of international diplomacy as Geneva was at one time. But the identity of the visitors and, more importantly, the duration — just a few hours – tell the real story. The formidable list had one purpose — to keep the Indo-Pakistan relations under control and the border quiet. Gen Colin Powell, US Secretary of State, came first and he ignited visits by several others. British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov, former Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, German Chanceller (Prime Minister) Gerhard Schroeder, French Foreign Minister Hubert Verdine and US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld (coming on Sunday). Also, in between there have been telephone calls from President Bush and President Musharraf. It is an eye-popping who’s who and obviously the mounting pressure not to distract the world’s attention from the Afghan operations is showing. Prime Minister Vajpayee’s Somnath remarks were somewhat harsh, given his growing image as a liberal. He has hawks in his Cabinet and they speak for the government; he should let them do the tough talking and retain the right to restore the balance if things get out of control. The Chanakya dictum would suggest the opposite of what New Delhi is doing. It should allow Pakistan get deeper into the muddle it has created for itself. Pakistan-based tribals (from autonomous areas in North-Western Frontier Province) are crossing the border to fight the US ground troops. It is well documented that Islamabad supplies fuel and ammunition to Taliban to resist the global efforts to crush terrorism. It has so far refused to pass on effective information on the active bases of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda and the bombing of hospitals, villages and a hydel power station attest to this. The arrest of three senior nuclear scientists is a damning development. President Musharraf has accepted the idea of bombing during Ramzan which will arouse passions in the Islamic world. The alarming perception is that the Pakistan President may be toppled and the nuclear bombs may fall into the hands of Al-Qaeda terrorists. These are published reports and not top secret intelligence messages. India has only to wait for things to erupt in the next few months and in the meantime play the peace card energetically. The key element is to talk softly and don the peace garb. The BJP will find it difficult to smile at a Muslim state but it is the right time to learn and practise. It is an international public relations game and India has to win it. |
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Hostile witnesses FILM
actor Chunkey Pandey is not the first prosecution witness to have turned hostile. The prosecution had to face the same problem in the BMW case, in which the grandson of a former naval chief was the main accused. The Jessica Lal murder case also saw a number of key witnesses going back on the statements they had given to the police. Chunkey Pandey was supposed to be a key witness in the Gulshan Kumar murder case. He went back on the statement he had made before the police. He said he knew nothing about the meeting between Abu Salem, a contract killer, and Nadeem Akhtar, a leading Bollywood music composer charged with having conspired to have Gulshan Kumar killed. The investigating agencies point to certain limitations in the present system of recording the statements of witnesses for explaining the phenomenon of prosecution witnesses turning hostile. But most explanations are unconvincing. Statements made before the police are not admissible as evidence. However, if the same statements were to be recorded in the presence of a magistrate, the witnesses would not be able to change their version of the incident at the trial stage. Why does the police not take the basic precaution of following what can be called a tamper-proof procedure for recording evidence of witnesses? Be that as it may, there are other aspects of the Gulshan Kumar murder case that have brought only discredit to the investigating agencies. Nadeem Akhtar was in London when Gulshan Kumar was killed by hired criminals. However, the police somehow managed to link Nadeem to the murder and moved an application before a London court for his extradition. The London court was not satisfied with the material presented before it for turning in Nadeem for facing trial in Mumbai, where Gulshan Kumar was murdered. The court used rather harsh language for explaining why Nadeem should not be extradited. Among other things it said that the application for the extradition of Nadeem was "not made in good faith and in the interests of justice... it would be unjust to return the applicant (Nadeem) because of the appearance of misbehaviour by the police" because of which a fair trial was not possible. In the Bofors case too India had to face embarrassment because of shoddy procedures that the Indian agencies usually adopt for investigating crimes. |
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The killer amidst us THE
US attack on Afghanistan has yielded a blessing in disguise for Punjab: the smuggling of brown sugar, opium and other drugs through the border state has almost stopped. Addicts, at least some, either because of the scarce supply of narcotics or their inability to buy these because of the sudden surge in prices, are finding their way to de-addiction centres. Opium, earlier available at Rs 115 10 gm, now costs Rs 150. For quite some time now people, suspecting complicity of ruling politicians and the police, have stopped expecting any corrective action from government machinery in the state. They appear to have resigned themselves to the situation. First terrorism claimed so many young lives; now drugs are crippling and killing Punjab youth. The Tribune report from Chheharta “50 drug addicts die in 2 years”, describing in detail how school children can be seen taking morphine injections in public view, could have numbed any sensitive individual with shock or triggered public outrage in any civilised society, but so widespread is the use of narcotics in the state and so common are deaths from their consumption that it does not seem to surprise anyone. Parents of young children appear to have given up any hope of positive action to eradicate this silent killer. Nobody even makes any demands on the government. Those on the look out for suitable boys for their marriageable daughters no longer ask questions about the boy’s qualifications or property, but make discrete enquiries to find out whether he is in any gang of drug addicts. No corner of the state has been left untouched by the malady. Right from Chandigarh, where boys in hostels learn to try drugs for fun and addicts take up pick-pocketing and other petty crime as a career in the PGI, to smaller towns where narcotics are available in chemist and grocery shops, this deadly racket runs. The reported victims’ list includes boys and girls in the 18-25 age group, rag-pickers as well as children from rich families. While the ruling politicians can be accused of criminal neglect of this life-and-death issue, if not being hand in glove with the operators, the Congress too has failed to either raise this with the seriousness it deserves or undertake any rehabilitation work on its own. Credit for making efforts to contain or highlight the disease goes to the media, the CPI, voluntary organisations like the Red Cross Society, Alcoholics Anonymous, the Janhit Samiti, the Association for Democratic Rights and the Folklore Research Academy, and individuals like the Dang couple. The Desh Bhagat Yadgar Hall Committee used the occasion of “Mela Gadri Babiyan Da” to launch a tirade against drug addiction. But the problem is too serious to be tackled by such voluntary effort alone and requires wider public and official participation. Anthrax has claimed the lives of four Americans and see the global outcry against the terror tactic. Here we are silently watching young lives perishing. |
Vagaries of unilateralist policies PRESIDENT Bush declared war on the terrorists who were responsible for the attacks on the World Trade Center, New York and the Pentagon on September 11 and swore that the war would not end till terrorism was completely eliminated from the world. The USA took nearly a month for preparations before launching the attack on Afghanistan on October 7 under the banner, “Enduring Freedom”. However, after more than three weeks since the US planes started bombing Afghanistan and over 1000 air strikes, the USA does not seem to be nearing the objective of eliminating the Taliban and more particularly Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network, Al Qaeda. The USA is unwilling to launch attacks by committing its troops. The bitter lessons which Russia learnt during the decade-long war in Afghanistan cannot be forgotten by any strategic thinkers, with the result the USA and its ally the UK, have been concentrating on intensive bombing of all the major cities and also the Taliban positions wherever possible. But after three weeks of intensive bombing there is hardly any important location of military value left in the cities of Afghanistan. Consequently there have been several civilian casualties as well as destruction of hospitals and International Red Cross and offices of other UN agencies who are running a rudimentary aid service in Afghanistan. In spite of all the technological improvement and the so-called laser-targeted pinpoint bombing, civilian casualties are increasing and they cannot be ignored as “collateral damage.” There is a sense of outrage among the people of Afghanistan and among the Muslims in general in West Asia. After the September 11 attacks on the USA, India promptly expressed its support to the USA in its fight against terrorism and promised to extend all support in this regard. India hoped that having been a victim of terrorism for many long years, primarily due to Pakistan, there would be American support in tackling the terrorist menace in J&K. But the geo-political situation turned quite unexpectedly in favour of Pakistan since it became the frontline country without whose support the USA could not mount the various operations against Afghanistan. Pakistan had almost become a pariah state in the eyes of the USA especially after the USA unveiled the National Missile Defence scheme and India expressed its enthusiastic welcome to it. In the changed atmosphere the USA had to cultivate Pakistan and this resulted in a series of measures such as the cancellation of sanctions imposed against India and Pakistan after the nuclear explosions in 1998, and grant of several loans and aid programmes to Pakistan. Mr Colin Powell, US Secretary of State, visited India and Pakistan on October 16-17 and although he walked a diplomatic tight rope he volunteered a statement on Kashmir being a central factor in Indo-Pak relations. If that had satisfied Pakistan, India did not have much to lose as things were alarmingly changing fast against Gen. Musharraf in Pakistan. Gen. Musharraf made some important changes in the army hierarchy, including the ouster of the ISI chief who was perceived to be close to Afghanistan. The displaced army commanders are bound to be harbouring dark deeds in their mind to be executed against Musharraf some day. The fundamentalist elements are in open revolt against Musharraf and his total alignment with the USA. A large number of Islamic militants have armed themselves and declared their intention to march into Afghanistan to fight for the Taliban. Musharraf’s cynical and total betrayal of the Taliban, whom he nurtured all these years, after the USA declared war against Afghanistan has not gone down well at all among the people of Pakistan and the Muslim world in West Asia. Meanwhile, the Palestine problem is getting more alarming and tragic. After a rightist Israeli minister was assassinated by Palestinian militants the Israelis moved into the Palestine territory and occupied several towns. They also went on a manhunt, ostensibly to arrest the persons responsible for the assassination of the minister. More than 10 Palestinians were killed in the Israeli operations, not to speak of demolition of buildings and discriminatory arrests. The US government expressed its disapproval and demanded the Israeli withdrawal from the Palestine territory but the Israelis took their own time and began a slow process of withdrawing in stages. Atrocities continue to be committed by Israelis in Palestine merely because it has the tanks, fighter aircraft and attack helicopters while the Palestinians have only suicide squads of Islamic militants and this has outraged the Muslims throughout the world. They are seen as one more proof of the US indulgence shown towards Israel. If only the USA and its think tanks had analysed the psychology of the hijackers who had trained for several months and carried out the attacks of September 11 embracing martyrdom, they would have realised that there was something seriously wrong with the American way of handling the tragic case of Palestinians and to a lesser extent Iraq, whose children and aged are suffering for more than 10 years due to the arbitrary blockade imposed by the Americans and the British. The American operations are getting stuck in a quagmire since they cannot eliminate the Taliban by air strikes alone. The American plan of winning over a sizeable section of the Taliban fighting force through an erstwhile Taliban hero Abdul Haq went horribly wrong as he was caught and promptly hanged along with his henchmen. The Taliban method of dealing with betrayals is notorious and Abdul Haq’s fate would be a warning for future aspirants for his mantle. The Northern Alliance based in the Panzsheer Valley had been shouting from the rooftop all the time that the Americans were doing precious little to attack the Taliban forces facing them in the North but were concentrating only in the South. The American game was to preempt a Russian-dominated Northern Alliance installed in power in Kabul. Musharraf’s insistence that the Taliban elements should find place in the future dispensation in Kabul was also another factor. Realisation has now dawned on a Americans that the Taliban have no place in any future setup in Kabul as that would only lead to a perpetual civil war. This possibly explains the recent escalation in bombing the Taliban in the Northern areas. Whether this would materially help the Northern Alliance in reaching Kabul remains to be seen. The possibility of the USA and its allies wrapping up the operations in the near future seems to be extremely doubtful. The British Chief of Defence Staff stated in London on October 27 that the war of Afghanistan could last up to four years with no certainty that the political objective which the US-led coalition had set would be fully achieved. He went out to describe the Afghanistan operations as the most difficult since the Korean War and it required rewriting the rule book as it went along. On top of this, the US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld stated on October 25 that the USA might not be able to catch Osama bin Laden even though the Taliban regime in Afghanistan would be toppled. Meanwhile the USA has become a victim of bio-terrorism and even more by an indefinable fear of so many dangers lurking round the corner. The anthrax fear is spreading, resulting in the shutting down of the Congress and the Supreme Court since the anthrax spores were traced in their mail delivery rooms. As for the war in Afghanistan, a leading and regular columnist in The New York Times, Thomas L. Friedman, had this to say on October 26: “My fellow Americans, I hate to say this, but except for the good old Brits, we’re all alone. And at the end of the day, it’s US and British troops who will have to go in on the ground and eliminate Bin Laden...... Unfortunately, killing 5,000 innocent Americans in New York just doesn’t get the rest of the world that exercised. In part we’re to blame. The unilateralist message the Bush team sent from its first day in office — get rid of the Kyoto climate treaty, forget the biological treaty, forget arms control, and if the world doesn’t like it that’s tough — has now come back to haunt us.” |
Chickening out MY downfall began on the day I sent a request for a set of pamphlets on poultry put out by the agriculture dept. My restive spirit had rebelled successfully against being a mere cog in the scheme of things — “hey you, go and fetch the boss a cup of ‘chai’ from the corner ‘dhaba’ — and I had resolved on going into business for myself and poultry seemed a promising line. My reasoning, as it unravelled at that time, seemed logical enough. The growing population needed protein and eggs were the cheapest source of that protein, acceptable even to the finicky vegetarians. “There’s gold in them eggs”, summed up my market research. I knew I had it in me to make it big in the poultry business and I could imagine banner headlines on the commercial pages — “Egg Emperor to go multinational” and “Poultry Potentate adds a 1,000 birds to his flock” and “Chicken Czar corners the feed market”. Another John D. Rockfeller in the making or Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge? Well, time will tell. The pamphlets were conveniently divided into four chapters — introducing you to poultry (“How do you do, Mr White Leghorn?”), building a coop, selection of birds and economics of egg marketing and production. Wanting to save on overheads — that’s how Henry Ford got his start — I decided to build the coop myself and I scrounged around the neighbourhood for discarded zinc sheets and armed with a hammer and a few rusty nails, went to work and when my handiwork was complete, I looked heavenward and delivered a silent benediction of thanks that my maker, in his divine wisdom, had made me a human being and not a chicken and a future occupant of my coop. The next item on the agenda was the selection of birds and pamphlet No. 3 suggested that I go in for Pearlbro Samrats for they were prolific “layers”, whatever that means. A quick trip to Russel Market and I was well stocked with Pearlbro Samrats and returning home, I ceremonially ushered them into their coop. The next morning found me sitting on an upturned washtub in front of the coop, waiting eagerly and expectantly for the birds to start laying their eggs which I would collect in a whacking wicker basket and sell them at a usurious profit in the market-place, but instead of going about briskly with their god-given task of laying their eggs, the birds kept packing listlessly at their feed. Alarmed, I called in a frightfully expensive society vet for hurried consultations. He examined the birds and pronounced that they had contracted coop and their throats needed immediate “painting”, but further treatment at this stage came to an abrupt stop for, the vet couldn’t decide on a colour contrast scheme for his painting job. My poultry is now in the competent hands of a court appointed liquidator and I am mourning over the shattered pieces of a roseate dream, but I have a consolation of sorts. My poultry business, if not the birds, has “laid an egg”. |
Remembering unsung heroes DO we know what is a Police Commemoration Day? I suspect not much is known about it. I felt very sad when I saw almost no media attention on the Police Commemoration Day observance on October 21. All state police forces do hold a commemoration parade to remember the gallant policemen who lay down their lives protecting ordinary citizens or fighting terrorists. However, these parades are very thinly attended and are almost a ritual. I was a witness to one such parade. I also saw a few video cameramen present there. Despite that, there was no television coverage of the event in the evening news. Even the following day newspapers almost ignored or understated the event. I asked myself why does this happen? How can we afford to ignore the most important day for over 13 lakh police personnel of this country? More so when there is a demand for greater and more effective national policing, visible and obtrusive? Every year over 1,000 policemen die on duty. And hardly anyone of them gets to be known publicly. They remain the unsung heroes — the unknown policemen who were destined to die. Pt Nehru, while unveiling a police memorial at Jaipur on 5.11.1963, said: “.…everyday we see the policemen working. Often we make allegations against them and criticise them. Some of the criticism is justified, while some isnot; but we forget how difficult the work is. Today, we look at a different aspect of their work, that is the protection of life and property for which they risk and sacrifice their lives…..” This is what the first Prime Minister of the country said in 1963. It is 2001 today and on this commemoration day there was no such message to the nation. This was a day to make certain commitments of concern, particularly when the whole internal security is strongly dependent on every single police officer’s performance. Some of the initiatives, which can be taken are: (i) Declare October 21 as a National Police Day (ii) India’s capital can have a National Police Memorial where the President lays a wreath on behalf of the nation (iii) Each state capital can house a state memorial where the Governor does so on behalf of the state citizens (iv) These national and state memorials can be symbols of ultimate duty and patriotism (v) Senior police officers on taking charge and giving up may begin and end from the memorial (vi) Review the departmental amenities extended on fatalities or injuries (vii) Examine the way we dress and arm our police personnel facing militancy or terrorism. In other countries the Police Commemoration Day is observed for a whole week comprising events in which social and political leaders express respect and solidarity. T.V. viewers may recall the way President Bush in his address to the Congress soon after the September 11 incident took out a badge from his pocket and showed it to the Congress. It belonged to a policeman who had died while doing his duty at the World Trade Center. The badge was given to President Bush by the policeman’s mother when the President called on the family. On this gesture of the President, the whole Congress stood up and gave a standing ovation as an expression of deep gratitude to the service as a whole. Today our policeman is isolated, neglected, ignored, deprived, insecure, tired and constantly under accusation. If he is honest and brave he is alone and vulnerable. When he dies, his family suffers alone and the country forgets him and declares it as a professional hazard for which he had been paid for. No wonder worldlywise policemen decide to provide and protect themselves and their families to secure their present and future. And in doing so they seriously jeopardise national security. October 21 is a day for reaffirmation of the importance of the police service as a service to the nation. It is a day for the public and the police to come together to respect its gallant officers. Otherwise how else will we motivate and get patriotic and brave youth to join the national service. Remember the respect with which we observe such days reflects who and what we as a nation are. The present is already a reflection of our past. What do we want our future to be? |
After Tehelka,
repression OUR politicians were, and still are, quite unprepared for television. So, when the Tehelka story exploded onto our screens with its images of leading political figures accepting bribes and army officers talking openly about the price of commissions, the government, quite simply, did not know what to do. Various, generally ineffective, attempts were made to lessen the impact of the expose but since these failed the government did what Indian governments do best: resort to repression. It would have looked really bad if they had gone for Tarun Tejpal or Tehelka.com. So they decided instead to go for Shankar Sharma and his wife Devina Mehra on the ground that it was their company, First Global, which had been the main investor in Tehelka.com. You and I may well say, so what if they invested in Tehelka but this is not good enough for the government, which has spent the past six months destroying the lives of Sharma and his wife on the basis of an absurd conspiracy theory which has them bringing the stock market down because they knew about the Tehelka expose in advance. Frankly, if one company can bring the stock market crashing down it has no right to exist, but that is another story. It was in connection with the “doctored” tapes that I met Shankar Sharma and his wife. The first question I asked Sharma was if he had any comments on the alleged doctoring. This was his answer. “We have no interest in whether the tapes are doctored or not. In fact, I think that in a country like India it is the dumbest thing for a journalist to try and investigate corruption.” This is what he claims he told Tarun Tejpal when he called him on the morning of the expose (March 13) and told him that this was what they planned to do. Had he known in advance, I asked, had he hammered the stock market down in what stockbrokers call a “bear action”. In answer he presented me with a booklet called “The SEBI report Unplugged”, which his company has produced to answer the charges that have been made against the Sharmas. It is too long to reproduce in this column but the SEBI Chairman and the Finance Minister would do well to read it if they have not already done so. It provides details of what is wrong with the action taken against First Global but also of what is wrong with the way in which are financial markets are regulated. In any case to return to what happened to the Sharmas. As a result of the Tehelka expose their company has been disallowed from functioning because of a clause in the SEBI Act which says a company can be indefinitely debarred from functioning on the stock market pending the results of an inquiry. They have been raided by the Income Tax Department despite there being no tax violation charges against them. Last month they were dragged off an aeroplane at Madras airport, and prevented from going abroad (where they have other companies) on the weird ground that the Income Tax Department suspected that they may not pay their taxes at some hypothetical future date. Sharma, who was earlier also arrested for allegedly attacking an income tax officer, said they were interrogated in Chennai for more then 40 hours by the department and then told that they would not be allowed to leave the country. The Sharmas have, in fact, prevented from doing any business in the near future despite First Global being one of India’s leading securities firms. It is the only Indian firm of its kind that has gone international, it has been listed on the London Stock Exchange and NASDAQ and until Tehelka, the Sharmas were regarded as financial whiz kids who had been remarkably successful. Since the hounding started they have to close down most of their company’s 17 offices in the country and are unable to make a living at all. Government sources claim that all this is happening because they are the main investors in Tehelka.com. If this is how the Vajpayee government thinks it ought to be dealing with the biggest story in Indian journalism in years, then it needs to start thinking again. If the Tehelka tapes made the government look bad what is being done to destory First Global and the Sharmas makes it look quite sickening. |
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‘See time, I’m ovulating’ Knowing when the time is right to try for a baby could soon be as easy as checking the time of day or month. Biotechnology and medical diagnostics company Pheromone Sciences of Vancouver, Canada, has developed a wristwatch-like gadget that tells women when they are about to ovulate and are most likely to conceive. “It works by measuring changes in the acidity of sweat. This is determined by hormone levels which indicate the woman’s fertility status,” according to the New Scientist magazine. The PSC Fertility Monitor can indicate if a woman is fertile, non-fertile or ovulating. Worn at night while sleeping, it includes a chemical sensor and microprocessor that calculates the changes which are displayed on the face of the device or sent to a computer. “Trials show the device correctly predicts ovulation to within two days in 76 per cent of subjects,” the magazine said. Women are usually most fertile and likely to ovulate halfway through their monthly cycle, usually days 10-17. But many women may not fit the general pattern and will have a much more variable fertility window. Knowing the time of ovulation can increase a woman’s chance of conceiving if she is trying for a baby and reduce the likelihood of getting pregnant if she is not.
Reuters Eat garlic to lose weight Eating garlic might make people keep their distance from you, but it can also help you lose weight, a new study in Israel has found.The Israeli ma’ Ariv daily reported that the study, by the institute for high blood pressure at Sheba hospital near Tel Aviv, found that Allicin, present in garlic, prevents weight-gain among animals fed with sugary feed. |
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The Vedic scholars have handed down to us, A traditional mythology and have also defined The doctrine of sin, virtue and retribution For what men give they receive. And for what they receive a gift shall be required of them. And reaping as they have sowed They are accordingly reborn, Either in hell or heaven. According to action of past lives, Men they say, are born in high castes and low, Yet the world wandereth in doubt as to all this. — Guru Angad Dev. Sri Guru Granth Sahib, Var Sarang, page 1243 *** One who has to tread the path of Divine Wisdom has to observe the following: 1. Steadfast devotion to the acquisition of divine wisdom. 2. Not to hurt anyone, not to speak evil of others. 3. To talk to people only of such things as would promote his welfare in this and the next world. 4. To acquire humility. 5. To live in a sequestered place, in seclusion away from the haunt of men. 6. To love every human being and to regard oneself as the lowest of all beings. 7. To keep God's will above everything else. 8. To observe patience and endurance in the midst of afflictions. 9. To cultivate the virtue of humility and self surrender and love of God. 10. To be content and resigned in everything. — Khwaja Muinuddin Chishti (by M. Hafiz Syed) *** People as a rule only pay for being amused or being cheated not for being served. When human tongues ceases to speak then the stones begin to talk. — Swami Ramatirtha, In Woods of God Realisation, Vol. II, Notebook V |
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