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Friday,
November 30, 2001, Chandigarh, India  
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Pointless posturing by ICC A policy on illiteracy A populist decision |
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Hari Jaisingh
Should India help
Nepal?
Fighting off cold in winter
Around the world for five years — all free
1930 Physiology or Medicine: KARL LANDSTEINER
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Pointless posturing by ICC ANY person who places a bet on Virendra Sehwag playing for India in the Mohali Test against England stands a good chance of becoming a millionaire. Those who love to play safe will, of course, bet on his sitting out, to serve the one-match suspension slapped on him by controversial match referee Mike Denness during the second cricket Test against South Africa at Port Elizabeth. It is clear that both the International Cricket Council and the Board of Control for Cricket in India are engaged in needless posturing over Sehwag playing at Mohali on December 3. The Chairman of the English Cricket Board, Lord MacLaurin, too need not lose sleep over the issue because of the slanging match between the ICC and the BCCI. Both are now engaged in a futile exercise of trying to humiliate each other. It is a different matter that the stand-off between ICC President Malcolm Gray and BCCI President Jagmohan Dalmiya over Sehwag's status has only lowered the image of the game they both claim to serve and promote. Of course, much of the blame for the needless controversy can be traced to how Mr Dalmiya handled the controversy after Denness took the unprecedented decision to punish more than half the Indian team on patently flimsy charges. As a former President of the ICC he should have known the consequences of defying the authority. The United Cricket Board of South Africa backed his decision and changed Denness as the match referee for the Centurion Park Test for financial reasons and not because the act of defiance had legal justification. The best option for the Indian team would have been to play the Centurion Park Test without picking a replacement for Sehwag, to convey the nation's displeasure at the unfair penalties slapped on six players by the match referee. The UCBSA could not have complained why India had fielded only 10 players. And the ICC too would have watched helplessly the spectacle of an official Test being turned into a farce just because it chose to reject the BCCI's genuine request for referring the decision of the match referee to a panel of experts for review. Yes, there is no provision in the existing rules for reviewing of decisions taken by the ICC appointed match referees. However, rules are supposed to serve the interest of the game, not cause damage to its image. But Mr Dalmiya is more interested projecting himself as the champion of the interests of Indian cricket rather than saving the game from becoming a source of tension and ridicule. And he is not the only administrator to have used the game’s popularity in India for promoting his own vested interests. However, technically his stand on the inclusion of Sehwag for the first Test is correct. The BCCI, or more specifically the selectors are not obliged to give out the names of players in advance. Most teams now announce the composition of the team just before the toss. |
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A policy on illiteracy WAY back in 1950, the Constitution solemnly promised to make education up to the age of 14 “universal and compulsory”. But the founding fathers had a premonition that successive governments would not be serious or sincere and hence relegated it to Article 45, Directive Principles of State Policy. These are guidelines and unlike the fundamental rights in Chapter III, cannot be enforced. They were right; illiteracy has been wiped out at the top of the social order but it tenaciously holds out among the most backward castes and the dalits. In urban areas in slums and in rural areas in the poorest of states. The NDA government has stirred itself up to address the problem by reviving a 1997 Bill drafted by the short-lived United Front government. It was passed after a four-hour discussion, often marked by a remarkable lack of understanding and commitment. The most glaring is the onus of providing education. In the case of the fundamental rights, it is the state’s duty to ensure them; in the case of the basic right to eight years of education the obligation lies with the parents. This is quixotic. Illiterate children are children of illiterate parents and forcing them to send their sons and daughters to school is to expect a patient to treat a medical specialist. The Bill is also blind to the economic status of parents who may need their children to augment the miserable income of the family. One report from Mirzapur in UP said that landless labour are pulling out their wards from schools since the progeny refused to work in the land after a few years of unrewarding high school education and there is no other work available. In many villages there is no infrastructure like school building, teachers, if at all they are present, and even drinking water facilities. Often children have to walk a few kilometres to attend classes and the same teacher has to take three different classes simultaneously. Against this background it is easy to imagine the quality of education imparted in these “janata” teaching centres. Lack of attention to primary education has created a dangerous situation. The illiterates are getting more illiterate and are concentrated in states which have a notoriously high percentage of illiterates. All these live on the fringe of society, the marginal men and women. They can escape the trap only with the help of education and it is this that is denied to them for more than four decades. What was true in Macaulay’s days is true even today. India’s schools and colleges produce pen-pushers and there is no more room for fresh entrants. Gandhi toyed with the idea of nai talim and later there was incessant talk of vocationalisation of education. In the debate on these issues the question of providing equitable education to the most backward castes and dalits was conveniently forgotten. The Bill passed by the Lok Sabha on Wednesday also ignores these vital points. |
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A populist decision THE Punjab Government has finally decided to scrap octroi from December 1. It had taken the BJP leadership almost five years to prevail over the Akali leadership and get one of its key electoral commitments implemented to consolidate its base among the urban and semi-urban traders in Punjab. If the Akalis can provide free electricity and water supply to farmers, their vote-bank, and do away with land revenue, why should the BJP leadership remain behind in the game of competitive populism? The Congress, had it been in power, would have done the same. It has already announced to continue with the Akalis’ policy of providing free power and water supplies to farmers, if voted to power, contrary to the party’s national-level stand, which is against such sops. It has chosen to withhold comment on the latest step towards voter management. Octroi abolition should have been a carefully thought-out economic exercise. Politics should have no role in this decision, which has far-reaching consequences on the development of cities and towns. The municipalities in the state are set to suffer a revenue loss of about Rs 500 crore. How they are going to be compensated for such a huge loss is yet to be worked out. So it is a case of decision first, justification later. The Punjab Cabinet meeting chaired interestingly by Local Bodies Minister Balramji Das Tandon on Wednesday appointed a committee under the Chief Secretary to explore alternative sources of revenue generation. At the same time Mr Tandon told reporters after the meeting that no additional burden would be put on the people to meet the shortfall in revenue. That octroi on electricity and liquor would continue is some consolation to the financially debilitated civic bodies. Mr Tandon has managed to get a loan of Rs 150 crore from his party colleagues in power at the Centre which will be at the disposal of the municipalities till alternative arrangements are finalised. Punjab will suffer from another debt just to help the ruling politicians to put a better show in the coming Assembly election. Despite a Rs 8,500 crore loan waiver from the I.K.Gujral government, the Punjab Government’s debt burden has increased from Rs 11,000 crore to Rs 27,000 crore during the rule of Mr Parkash Singh Badal excluding the latest sanction. Economic mismanagement is the landmark of the present coalition government. Various ideas are being tossed around for alternative fund raising. One is to opt for entry “tax”, which will put another barrier to smooth traffic movement and defeat one of the justifications for octroi removal. Having a cess on sales tax, as is prevalent in Madhya Pradesh, will annoy the traders, the main beneficiaries of octroi removal. How the Punjab Government manages to create new sources of income for the municipalities without hurting one or the other section of the voters will be interesting to watch. Quite likely, it won’t take any decision. Whatever arrangements it decides on will be hurtful to the people and hence will be tied up after the next February assembly elections. |
Afghanistan without Taliban shadow TIME often comes to the aid of the timid. Whether we like it or not, such has been the case of India. Those at the helm of national affairs hardly choose to act firmly and decisively. That is the reason why the country has been labelled as a soft state—a sort of permissive society with a mindset of sab chalta hai. Look at any set of problems — economic, social or political. We generally remain stuck while problems multiply and get from bad to worse. Why is it so? Perhaps, there is basic dishonesty in our national character which keeps us rooted to inaction and past rigidities. We are basically a status-quoist lot. What makes this status-quoism disquieting when it acquires negative overtones. Nothing can be more disheartening than the lack of understanding of changing challenges, proper application of mind and the absence of dynamism, drive and initiative to play with new ideas and concepts so as to keep things moving at a faster pace than is the case today in the present competitive global environment. I don't propose to go into every problem we are confronted with. However, the one which has affected us most is Kashmir. It will be worthwhile to have a critical look at it in the context of the collapse of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and the dubious role played by General Pervez Musharraf. The Kashmir imbroglio has been with us right from 1947. The communal holocaust apart, this was the first major problem the nation was faced with. In all these years, we could not solve it. Not that we did not try. We did. But rather half-heartedly. We fought two wars—again half-heartedly. No solution came out of it simply because we lacked the requisite political will to take things to logical conclusions. The cost of confusion has been enormous. We have lost over 50,000 lives and perhaps over 100 billion rupees. With this huge amount of money, each Kashmiri could have had a higher standard of living than is the case today. But then the Kashmiris are equally to blame for this messy situation. They have to pause and think coolly and honestly. The battlecry for "azadi" means little to common Kashmiris. This is part of political games regularly played by vested interests which wish to gain by spreading terrorism in the name of Talibanised Islam. If we honestly look at Kashmir and the rest of India, I have no hesitation in saying that the people here enjoy more freedom than in Pakistan and democratic countries —that too without any sense of discipline and responsibility. There is no dearth of perverted Kashmiri leaders who refuse to listen to reason. If they were to live in some West Asian country they will probably see the difference between Indian democracy and the system prevailing there. Unfortunately, a section of Kashmiris has played into Pakistani hands, controlled by the military and the ISI who have the sole agenda of fomenting communal trouble, spreading terrorism and destabilising the Indian polity. The moot point is: Kashmiris want "azadi" (freedom). Fine. But "azadi" for what and for whom? To join Pakistan? That will not give them freedom. Or, do they wish to go the Taliban way discarding that secular sufi tradition? Perhaps, they have not realised the consequences of the Taliban brand of "freedom" to the people of Afghanistan? There is no such thing as absolute freedom. Wisdom does not lie in knowing how to live in a vacuum, but in learning the art of living in a world of diverse settings. There is a specific reason for my being deeply upset by Kashmir's misfortune. I have written a book on the state and its problems and have been closely watching the developments there as if standing amidst the Kashmiris.. As I have said, time seems to have found a solution to the Kashmir problem. Thanks to the September 11 events. Thanks to the collapse of the Taliban regime. Thanks to America's total war against terrorism. And finally, thanks to the discomfiture of Pakistan. Islamabad has been at the root of the Kashmir problem. It could sustain only on outside support of China and the West. It could convert any defeat into victory. So, after the 1965 defeat, it had China to back it. And after the 1971 defeat, it had America to do so. What must have frustrated our people was Washington's refusal to see the dangerous fallout of its Afghanistan policy. It ensured the defeat of Russian forces without bothering about creating an alternative viable system. In fact, the USA left the field for Pakistan. And the military regime and the ISI then promoted the Taliban and Osama bin Laden with their active support. The USA created the Taliban to fix up the then Soviet forces. After the withdrawal of Russia, America overlooked Pakistan's deeprooted strategy of using the Taliban to wage a proxy war in Kashmir against India. Only when Osama bin Laden decided to take on America itself did the White House wake up to the dangers of the spectre of terrorism it had allowed to grow. And yet the US report on "Patterns of Global Terrorism 2000" did say: "The Harkat-ul-Mujahideen continues to be active in Pakistan without discouragement by the government of Pakistan.... credible reporting indicates that Pakistan is providing the Taliban with material, fuel, funding, technical assistance and military advisers. Pakistan has not prevented a large number of Pakistani nationals from moving into Afghanistan to fight for the Taliban. Islamabad also failed to take effective steps to curb the activities of certain madrasas or religious schools that serve as recruiting grounds for terrorism." This report was published in April, 2001—five months before the traumatic developments of September 11. Did the US authorities take any action? No. Not even after the damage inflicted on its embassies. It did not even give any warning to the Taliban. Perhaps, America thought the Frankenstein monster would not turn against it. This is what European Commission President Romano Prodi said while on a visit to India: "India has long been a target of terrorism and has often warned Europe of the dangers of this plague spreading to the rest of the world. The attacks on the USA have shown how well-founded these warnings were. We in Europe will listen more closely to India in future." Well, if European countries had been more alert and active, the problem of terrorism would have been better managed. But that was not to be. We are afraid America might once again opt for the same old policy of expediency. It knows that the epicentre of terrorism is and was in Pakistan. There are 7,000 madarsas serving as recruiting centres for terrorists. And the most powerful terrorist organisations are based in Pakistan. They thrive on the illegal narcotic trade. But so far the USA has not spoken firmly about it. The USA has been treating Pakistan as an asset since September 11 because Washington says it needs Islamabad for its war against terrorism in Afghanistan. But, in what way has Pakistan helped the war against the Taliban? Had there been no Northern Alliance, there would have been no victory over the Taliban. Merely bombing of the Taliban-dominated areas would not have driven the Taliban out of Kabul. Today, America is engaged in pleasing Pakistan by allowing it to have its say in Kabul. This may lead to a civil war. As far as India is concerned, we are waiting to see how the USA handles Pakistan's deep involvement in terrorism. If Washington is able to force Islamabad to dismantle all terrorist outfits — Jaish-e-Mohammad, Lashkar-e-Toiba, Harkat-ul-Ansar and others — and close down the training camps and the madarsas run by dubious organisations, it will make a big difference to militancy in Kashmir. This is the best way to choke the steady stream of terrorists flowing into Kashmir. And it may show its impact on the stand of the Hurriyat leaders too. As for militancy in the valley, it has been kept alive by Islamabad. Otherwise, it would have died a natural death long ago. I believe the setting up of a progressive regime in Kabul is the key to the stability of the entire region — Central Asia and South Asia. First of all, it will dampen the fundamentalist urge. It will tame the mullahs. It is here that India must play a key role. It must not allow the USA and Pakistan to create conditions for future instability. New Delhi must ensure that any future regime in Kabul is truly independent, truly democratic and truly secular. |
Should India help Nepal? THE Maoists have finally struck. They have broken the truce within four months. This was expected. Now, it is a matter of time before they take over the country. That is, if they are allowed to do so. The Maoists are already in possession of western Nepal. They have now formed a people’s Liberation Army. They have set up a parallel government. And Prachanda, the Maoists leader, has called upon the police and the army to join forces with him. The Maoists are, first of all, against the monarchy. Unfortunately, the monarchy is at present in bad shape after the recent massacre. King Gyanendra, who is suspect in the eyes of the people, cannot lead the country against the Maoists. Nor can the Nepalese army, which has not been tested in battle and is poorly equipped. But it is the only force which can put up some resistance. Sushil Koirala, General Secretary of the Nepalese Congress says: “The army is the only option now as the terrorists do not believe in a negotiated settlement.” Can India help the army? But do the Nepalese want India’s help? The law and order machinery has literally broken down in most of the provinces. The Maoists have the police as their main target. Casualties among policemen have been the largest. So, that leaves the political parties. But they are in disarray. The ruling class has put up Sher Bahadur Deuba as the Prime Minister. His only qualification was that he knew personally the Maoists leadership. But he has failed to win over the Maoists to peaceful ways. In fact, the political parties are not united in their opposition to the Maoists. They are in two minds whether they should be opposed or not. Some may even want to make a deal with the Maoists. The Maoists have a real cause. They are fighting against an oppressive feudal system that has denied a reasonable life to the poor. The poor are naturally with the Maoists. And the Maoists are well equipped and have the support of China. Should India support the democratic forces although they have not acted in good faith with India? India cannot brook the idea of a Nepal under the Maoists. Maoism is a discredited ideology. Even China had discarded it. In any case, the issue is not ideology, but how the Maoists propose to come to power. It is clear that they have chosen to seize power through violence. They are inimical to all democratic norms. India has an added concern. It cannot ignore the fact that the Maoists are creatures of China. India cannot permit the extension of Chinese power and influence into Nepal. But can India prevent it? The 1950 Treaty between India and Nepal has provision for Indian intervention in case Nepal is threatened by foreign aggression or by a communist insurgency. It is mainly a security treaty. As if to emphasise this fact. Nehru told the Indian Parliament in 1959 that an aggression on Nepal would be an aggression on India. So, India’s commitment to protect the security of Nepal is there. All that we want to know is whether the Nepalese authorities want India’s help and in what form. This question calls for a proper answer, for the Nepalese have been ill at ease with the treaty for a long time and have of late been calling for its abolition. India is agreeable to its review, but the Nepalese have failed to make up their mind on the final shape of the treaty or whether they want a new treaty. That is why we must know Nepal’s mind. China’s interest in Nepal began with its claim to Nepalese territory. But today China’s main concern is for the security of Tibet. It wants to bring Nepal under its influence to prevent hostile forces using Nepal to mount subversion in Tibet against China. This explains why China has allowed Nepal to play the “China card”. And it is a fact that both the monarchy and the political parties have played the “China card” against India. The question today is not whether the Maoists can seize power, or whether India can intervene, but whether the Maoists, a terrorist organisation, can be allowed to seize power. Now that the world community is opposed to all forms of terrorism, the Maoists cannot be allowed to have their way. Nepal is not a colony of some foreign power. It is an independent democratic country with an elected government. No group can claim that it is more representative of the people or that it has mandate from the people when that mandate has not been tested at the hustings. The fact is: the core of the Maoists consists of a few political upstarts, who think that they have the answer to Nepal’s problems. And they chose the gun to achieve their objective. This is exactly what Bin Laden sought to achieve. He too wanted to create a new world order and a new Islamic order. And to attain these objectives he chose terrorism. There is hardly any difference between Bin Laden and Prachanda. Only this that Prachanda wants to change Nepal and Bin Laden wants to change the world. That is why the international community must intervene in Nepal. The UN must ban the Maoist group as it is a terrorist organisation. There should be no double standards. If Taliban can be destroyed, the Maoists too can be eliminated. |
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Fighting off cold in winter CHRISTMAS has come early for the manufacturers of vitamin supplements, as we rush to health-food stores to stock up on vitamin C tablets in the hope of warding off the dreaded common cold. But in my opinion, we’re wasting our money: taking vitamin C supplements neither prevents you from catching a cold nor reduces its severity if you succumb to one. Researchers have long known this, but if you still need convincing the latest evidence from the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health at the Australian National University, Canberra, has confirmed that taking more than the recommended 60mg of vitamin C per day is futile. Eating plenty of fresh fruits, along with vegetables that are packed with vitamin C — largely green, leafy vegetables like Savoy cabbage and spinach — is a good way of ensuring that your vitamin C intake is adequate. And if you hit the five-portions-a-day mark, you’ll also consume other immune-system-boosters, such as selenium and beta carotene. Winter citrus fruits, such as clementines and satsumas, are especially rich in vitamin C, as are grapefruits, oranges, kiwis and berries like blueberries. Drinking freshly squeezed juice is another option, the ideal being one that you’ve squeezed yourself and drunk at once, but a good second best is a supermarket-bought, freshly squeezed juice (but not one that has been exposed to the UHT pasteurisation process, which destroys most vitamins and minerals). And although I’m usually against additives, the manufacturers of juices that have been enriched with vitamin C have only replaced what was lost in the processing, which I can’t condemn. In addition, I’d advise you to eat more garlic, which possesses almost magical anti-bacterial qualities that can not only keep a cold at bay, but help you to recover if the sniffles have already struck. The magic bug-busting ingredient is allicin, which is also found in leeks and onions, but in a less concentrated form. Either include garlic in your cooking, eat it raw in salad dressings (raw garlic offers higher levels of allicin) or, if you can’t stomach garlic in its natural state, take a garlic capsule every day. (Medicinal herbalists recommend that adults take two 100mg capsules three times a day when suffering from a cold or bronchitis.) A cold remedy that I swear by is to crush a medium-sized garlic clove, grate in a similarly sized piece of fresh ginger, squeeze in the juice of a whole lemon, add a teaspoon of runny honey and pour a cup of warm water over the paste, the concoction to be taken three times a day. Another tip is that chewing some fresh parsley or sucking a coffee bean helps to reduce garlic’s after-aroma. Finally, I am a huge fan of echinacea, the flower remedy that is widely available in health-food stores, having found that whenever I start to feel a cold taking hold, or have been closeted with sneezing patients all day, 500mg taken three times a day sees it off. |
Around the world for five years — all free A Dutch student who has set up a Web site asking people to put him up for free says his budget world trip could last another five years. Ramon Stoppelenburg has received 2,400 invitations from 67 countries since setting off from his home town of Zwoller in March. In the last six months he has been on safari in South Africa, stayed in an Irish castle and cruised along the Norwegian coast for free. His letmestayforaday.com site, which includes updates of his journey, has attracted millions of visitors. The 24-year-old said: “I thought I would be travelling around my home town for a few weeks and that maybe after a year I could go to Belgium — but the idea exploded. I will probably be travelling for another four or five years, and I haven’t spent a single cent. I have learned to live without fixed plans and have no idea where I could end up next.” He has relied on hitch-hiking, but local businesses and community groups often help arrange free travel from place-to-place. He asks each host for a small present, then passes it on to the next person who helps him out. The journalism student is currently in South Africa and plans to leave for Spain on December 10. Reuters
Book on poetry compiled by Indian envoy To mark the Millennium Assembly of the United Nations, Secretary-General Kofi Annan released “Mille Fleurs”, a collection of world poetry compiled by Kamalesh Sharma, India’s Ambassador to the UN, in New York on Tuesday. The publication, sponsored by Infosys Limited, and supported by the CII, is the second publication to mark the Millennium Assembly, the first being a compilation of essays “Imagining Tomorrow: Rethinking the Global Challenge”. Mr Sharma said the book was a compilation of poems contributed by the various ambassadors to the United Nations and the members of the Secretariat. The release of the book marked the culmination of a journey that Mr Sharma and CII traversed together over the past nine months — a journey which brought new meaning to the term “Global Village”.
ANI India to face water shortage by 2030: expert All parts of India will face water shortage by 2030 though there is
currently a trend of increasing rainfall, an expert has said, lamenting little government spending on water availability and sanitation. Record of the last 10 years showed that there had been increasing rainfall in this part of the world — between zero and 30 degrees North latitude — Prof V. Subramanian of the School of Environmental Sciences, JNU, said at the four-day International Workshop on Ecohydrology, which began in Delhi on Monday. In the next 50-60 years, average rainfall is predicted to increase by 5 to 10 per cent in the region with low lying areas like in Bangladesh where some areas were in danger of submergence, he warned, saying the phenomenon was linked to global warming. PTI |
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Shifting of Courts
Ambala: At a mass meeting of the residents of Ambala Cantt. held on the 17th October, 1926, under the presidency of the Rai Bahadur Lala Benarsi Das, resolutions were passed cordially welcoming the proposal of the Deputy Commissioner to shift the District Courts from the City to the Cantonment and requesting the government to give an early effect to the scheme. Some of the leading citizens, including K.B.Lt. Amir Baksh L. Kidar Nath, Lala Anant Ram of Mohan Lal and Co. and K.S. Sheikh Abdul Majeed, offered to construct suitable buildings if so required on accommodating terms. In the speeches made, it was pointed out that the Ambala Cantonment, by virtue of its having the largest population among all the cities of the district, its general lay-out, schools and colleges, hospitals and clubs and other like civic institutions, was the fittest place for the headquarters of the district. |
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Thy praisers praise Thee, And know not Thy greatness; As rivers and streams flow into the sea, But know not its vastness. Kings who possess dominions vast as the sea, With wealth heaped high as the mountain, Are not equal to the little worm That forgotteth not God in its heart. Infinite is His Goodness; and Infinite its praise; Infinite are His Works and Infinite His gifts; Where are the bounds of His Hearing or His Seeing? Unfathomable is the infinity of His Mind; There are no bounds even to His creation. How many wax their hearts to know His limits But seeking to explore Infinity, can find no bounds; The more we say The more there is left to say; High is our Lord and very High is His throne; His holy Name is higher than the highest. He that would know His height must be of the same height; Only the Lord knows the greatness of the Lord. Saith Nanak, only by God's grace and bounty Are God's gifts bestowed on Man. —Guru Nanak Dev,
* * * Perversity of the soul is like a woman of low caste, Lack of compassion like a butcher woman; The desire to find fault with others Is like a scavenger woman, The sin of wrath is like an utter outcast; What use is it to draw a line around your kitchen. If four such vices keep your company. Make your discipline the practice of truth, Make the square you draw round your kitchen The practice of virtue; Make the ceremonial cleansing of your body The meditation of Holy Name. Saith Nanak: Those alone shall be deemed good and pure That walk not in the way of sin. —Sri Guru Granth Sahib,
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