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Deaths in custody
Hope intact
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A Tribune Debate
On the wings of a wig
Attacks on women
Politicians vilify bankers
Southeast Asia faces trade shift
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Deaths in custody
THE front-page report in The Tribune (February
10) revealing the steady rise in the number of custodial deaths in Punjab is deeply disturbing. It portrays the state police in poor light. Based on the figures given to the Supreme Court, the table used along with the report shows how deaths in custody in Punjab have increased from two in 2004 to a whopping 80 in 2006 and 63 in 2007!
The Punjab government has supplied these figures in an affidavit before the Bench consisting of Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan and Justice P. Sathasivam. Shockingly, Mr Abhishek Manu Singhvi, amicus curie in a PIL case, told the court that the Punjab government has not taken action against those responsible for these custodial deaths. Clearly, this indifferent attitude of the authorities is the root cause of the continuing malady.
Deaths in the lock-up have been reported in both police stations and jails with sickening regularity in Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh, yet the guilty policemen have gone scot-free. No wonder, they have no fear of the law and those in their custody, with their crime yet to be proven, continue to die. Not all the deaths could be natural. Custodial deaths are also common in other states. There are several cases where the police officers have brazenly abused their powers. Though they are the custodians of law, they tend to torture people, oblivious of their fundamental right to life guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution. The Supreme Court has been voicing concern over the alarming trend. In 2003, it ruled that life or personal liberty under the Constitution included the right to live with human dignity. There is an in-built guarantee against torture by the state and hence, it is difficult to comprehend how custodial violence can be permitted to defy rights flowing from the Constitution, it said. The Supreme Court, the high courts, the National Human Rights Commission and the Law Commission have decried the use of third-degree methods by the police during interrogation. Yet, this goes on unchecked throughout the country. It is time to take exemplary action against those responsible for lock-up deaths. A policeman who is insensitive towards the human rights of the accused has no right to don the uniform. |
Hope intact THE advance estimate of India’s economic expansion this fiscal at 7.1 per cent, released by the Central Statistical Organisation on Monday, does not come as a surprise. Though the latest CSO figure is sharply lower than the 9 per cent average GDP growth achieved during the last three financial years, it should, nevertheless, reassure the people that despite a difficult economic environment the country’s growth will not wilt. The CSO projection is in conformity with that of the RBI and the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council, though most international agencies, including the IMF and the World Bank, have much lower expectations. What comes as a nasty surprise in the latest data is the sharp slowdown in agriculture, which supports 65 per cent of the country’s population.
Contrary to previous hopes of a robust agricultural growth, the farm sector will expand only by 2.6 per cent against a healthy 4.9 per cent in the previous year. The industrial growth has shrunk as expected. The service sector too has belied expectations. What cheered the stock markets to register a 283-point rally in the BSE Sensex despite the markets remaining largely mellowed elsewhere on Monday was the hope for more stimulus measures in the interim budget to be presented on February 16. Since inflation is inching down, the RBI has sufficient reason to effect a cut in its key rates to lower the cost of borrowings for individuals and institutions. Apart from a slump in global demand, which has badly hurt the export sector, the high cost of capital and its not-so-easy availability has battered the economy in general and corporate profitability in particular. Despite limited cash at its command, the UPA government is set to present a please-all interim budget to boost the economy as also its chances of victory in the coming Lok Sabha elections. That it will saddle the country with a painfully high debt is another matter. |
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The sound of Indian music Music lovers, rejoice. It is celebration time for Indian music as three international awards came its way. The prodigal music director, AR Rahman, has done it again. He picked up the prestigious BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) award for the score of Slumdog Millionaire, which only recently fetched him the Golden Globe, and many other awards. Keeping him company is FTII alumnus Resul Pookutty for the best sound design along with Glenn Freemantle.
In a different, albeit no less significant, international league is tabla maestro Ustad Zakir Hussain who has won a Grammy in the contemporary World Music Album category for his collaborative album Global Drum Project. Other Indian Grammy hopes Louis Banks nominated in the Best Contemporary Jazz Album category, slide guitarist Debashish Bhattacharya and classical vocalist Lakshmi Shankar who were nominated in the Best Traditional World Music category may have been dashed. But there is no denying that Indian music is on a song, keeping the Indian flag high. Hussain’s and Rahman’s feats are no flash in the pan brilliance. While awards have been raining on Rahman, gifted percussionist Hussain’s earlier project Planet Drum with Micky Hart, which was released in 1991, had won the first-ever Grammy Award in the World Music category. Actually Indian musicians’, especially classical musicians, tryst with the world began back in time. Renowned sitarist Pandit Ravi Shankar had not only put sitar on the world map but also became the Indian face of music and is easily one name music aficionados all over the world know. Incidentally, he has won three Grammies, most recently in 2002. Among others who have walked the hallowed path is Pandit Ravi Shankar’s disciple, Mohan Veena exponent Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt whose album “A meeting by the river” was awarded a Grammy in 1994. Indian classical music and musicians have been India’s undisputed ambassadors of culture, wooing listeners around the globe. The number of Grammy nominations each year is not only proof of its growing international acceptance but also of the innovative abilities of Indian musicians in creating the right world sound. Rahman has shown that mankind can be reached through popular music. Whether he bags the coveted Oscar or not — with three nominations it stands a chance — the West has already been won. |
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Bigotry may be roughly defined as the anger of men who have no opinions. |
Politicians vilify bankers
THE unpopularity of the bankers is without precedent. In the late 1970s, reckless trade union leaders could always count on support from parts of the Labour Party and the media. Now, the bankers face universal vilification. Political leaders are in a contest to shout the loudest in their condemnation of big bonuses. Powerful newspapers fume at their immoral behaviour. As the shadow Chancellor, George Osborne, declared: “The party’s over.” Or is it? Gordon Brown’s response in terms of policy is to hold a review. That is always Mr Brown’s response to areas which are complex and controversial. Indeed, in the past, he appointed senior bankers to conduct his reviews. Most famously the former banker, Derek Wanless, reviewed NHS spending. That was when Mr Brown considered it to be fashionable and politically expedient for him to be associated with bankers, a Labour chancellor dancing arm in arm with wealth-creating entrepreneurs. It worked for him at the time. In 2003, Mr Wanless proposed tax rises to pay for the NHS, and – behind the protective shield of such a revered member of the financial community –Mr Brown dared to make his move. Now he turns to Sir David Walker, a senior adviser at Morgan Stanley International to review the bankers. I can imagine the fevered thinking that led to the setting up of this review. Mr Brown would not want to decide who should or should not get a bonus. There are legal contracts entitling some to bonuses. He wants to keep a distance and yet at the same time he wants to be seen doing something. So he sets up a review. When the review reaches its conclusion at the end of the year he will be acting on behalf of Sir David Walker, another protective shield. The timing is also highly political. The review will report its preliminary findings in the autumn. That will give ministers a set of headlines about a tough new approach to banking. I can assure you now that the preliminary findings will be the same as the final ones scheduled for the end of the year, which will give Mr Brown another hit as he responds to the definitive report. Mr Brown recognised long ago that the anti-politics culture in Britain means it makes more sense for a non-politician to take the controversial decisions. It is a depressing and yet valid insight. Nonetheless, in this case, Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne have good cause to spot the ploy and mock it. It does not take a review to discover what has been going on in the banks. Mr Brown and others know exactly what happened and why. The review is a timid device when action is needed. But Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne are severely challenged by the banking crisis too. They make much of changing capitalism through cultural pressure, a nudge here and there. In his generously received speech in Davos, Mr Cameron argued that “if markets and capitalism, and the activities of individual businesses conflict with our vision of the good society and a better life ... we must speak out”. A lot of powerful forces are speaking out at the moment and the banks have told them all to get stuffed. The response is the most vivid proof yet that exhortation is not enough. If they won’t yield to such forces as the mighty media and all the main political parties it is difficult to imagine them relenting to any combination of words and cultural pressures. In fairness, the Conservatives accept the banks need a tougher regulatory framework. I spoke to one of their frontbenchers yesterday asking some more interesting questions about the efficacy of markets. Why was it, he wondered, that some bankers were being paid huge sums for offering advice and information that were in the possession of any senior financial journalist being paid a tenth of the salary? One example of many, he concluded, in which markets were not working effectively. The analysis is thoughtful. The problem is that merely telling the bankers and others to behave themselves evidently will not do the trick. Currently, political leaders dare to speak out but are fearful for different reasons of coming up with precise policies. Mr Cameron’s latest move is to form a new Economic Recovery Committee, another gesture, an attempt to be seen doing something rather than addressing more fundamental questions about the Conservatives’ economic policy. Mr Cameron’s committee and Mr Brown’s review are symptoms of fearful caution as the world moves on. — By arrangement with
The Independent |
Southeast Asia faces trade shift
Stimulus packages being put in place by many export-dependent nations in Southeast Asia may not do enough to protect those economies from the consequences of the fundamental shift in trading patterns that underlies the current financial crisis, analysts warn. The exporting nations have taken slightly different paths in attempting to combat the global slowdown, but all their packages rest on a similar assumption: that the world economy will pick up in the third quarter, causing things to return to normal. Regional analysts say, however, that the present crisis is not just another cyclical downturn but is instead a structural realignment and that Southeast Asia’s export economies need to act quickly to adjust to a new reality in which American and European consumers will no longer be the main market. “We are geared towards selling what the U.S. and Europe want, not what Asians want. We need a readjustment,” said Supavud Saicheua, the managing director of Phatra Securities in Bangkok. “In the long term, Asians have to consume more, and Europe and the U.S. have to consume less.” In a world dominated by born-again Keynesians, deficit-funded stimulus packages are all the rage. In Southeast Asia, there have been a variety of approaches: Vietnam has chosen to support industry, Thailand is trying to mitigate the effects on the most vulnerable, and Singapore has gone for a mixture of the two. Tai Hui, head of economic research for Southeast Asia at Standard Chartered Bank in Singapore, said he believes that the packages will work for the region’s bigger economies but are likely to have limited effects in smaller nations. “It will work well for India and China, but for the smaller economies like Hong Kong and Singapore, no matter how much you spend, it is not going to compensate for the slowdown in Europe and the U.S.,” Hui said, adding that the packages “will at best break the fall.” For the countries in the middle, the scale of the problems they face appears to have blunted governmental ambitions. Korn Chatikavanij, Thailand’s new finance minister, said his $3.3 billion stimulus package was designed to “stop the bleeding” until the global economy picks up. His biggest fear, he said, is that the global economic revival will not come soon enough. Some analysts have said that the packages raise two questions: What effect will they have on domestic demand? And if they are effective, will they save the region’s export industries? Compared with the rest of the world, Asia has very high savings rates, which are considered likely to rise, given the present mood of uncertainty. “Domestic demand was starting to come off even before you saw the collapse of exports,” said Prakriti Sofat, a Singapore-based economist with HSBC. The high savings rates mean that consumers will take at least some of their country’s stimulus money and squirrel it away, further limiting the effects of packages that are in some cases fairly small, anyway. Many analysts contend that even if the stimulus packages manage to reignite domestic demand, that demand is unlikely to be for the narrow range of manufactured products that Southeast Asia’s most export-dependent economies have long produced in vast quantities, such as Thailand’s
pickup trucks and hard drives, and Vietnam’s furniture and shoes. If the problem were merely a short-term one, export companies could probably weather the storm with government help, but according to Supavud, the Phatra Securities analyst, a long-term structural shift in the global economy means that the demand profile for Asian exports will never return to its pre-crisis form. In Southeast Asia, the pain is likely to be spread unevenly.
At one end of the spectrum will be countries such as Indonesia, the region’s largest economy. Economists say it is better off than most, thanks to its lower dependence on exports, particularly manufactured products. Economic growth, which was about 6 percent last year, is expected to slow to 4.5 percent this year. However, the country’s longer-term prospects are considered relatively healthy. At the other end is Singapore, which has seen domestic exports shrink and is already in recession. — By arrangement with
LA Times-Washington Post |
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