MONTH-IN-PERSPECTIVE

TAMIL NADU: So after all Kundankulam nuclear reactor is set to go critical and on stream shortly. The hick-ups in the form of prolonged public protest-allegedly inspired by foreign funded NGOs-has ended, paving way for the project to go functional. India needs power, a huge one at that. Nuclear is the best and cheapest source. India has the necessary expertise and the man power, to manage all aspect of Nuclear power generation so also its crisis management, if any. The public protest, however good intentioned, is certainly not well informed. There are enough materials available in the public domain to justify going nuclear. Japan could do, what it did, as an economic power, during the 2nd half of 20th century, was only because of nuclear power. To-day there is a section of Japanese who are agitating against the nuclear power only after the last tsunami tragedy at Fukushima. But how many really suffered or died due to nuclear power is not fully answered. But the latest report by IAEA has confirmed that Fukushima disaster was a human failure which could happen with best of planning, besides other checks and balances.

Thus, we need not fear nuclear mishaps. Hope Kudankulan will usher in a power-ful India, which will only improve the life of we all Indians, not just only of those who are the affordable section of India shining.

Terrorist called teacher is at it again. We thought corporal punishment is a thing of the past. If anything, it is becoming more and more cruel. In recent days urine is becoming tool of punishment. If the warden of the Vishwabharathi University hostel made a girl inmate lick the bed for bedwetting, three teachers of a govt. aided school in Tamil Nadu had asked a IX class boy to drink urine instead of his habit of chewing tobacco. While they were reprimanding the boy verbally, he urinated in his pants after having denied him access to toilet, for which three teachers reportedly canned him all over. 

These two incidents happened in matter of a week, in as far place as Kolkatta and Thanjavur in Tamil Nadu. These are only reported incidents. There are stories from all across India, in both private as well as government schools, happening at regular intervals but remaining mostly unreported and beyond media glare.

Children everywhere, whether it is school, at home, or at work place, even on road, at the hands of police and anti-socials, are the most vulnerable and are exposed to varieties of violent acts. Their rights are regularly violated with impunity.

But unlike all else, a teacher is an embodiment of love and affection towards these children, if they themselves behave in a way a tyrant could behave, then it is indeed a sad day for the child. After all these children are left in the care of these supposedly caring teachers, who are also guardian of temples of knowledge.

ASSAM: There was this news “Pregnant Cong MLA assaulted for converting to Islam”. The report, prima facie, informs the sensation angle. Assaulting a pregnant lady is bad, but if she is an MLA there is another dimension to it. Conversion to Islam is the third dimension. All are part of the same story. We all should accept assaulting a woman is a crime and should be dealt accordingly. But if it is a pregnant woman, it could endanger the life of an unborn child. This is another crime, more serious. This too deserve to be equally dealt with. Here the victim being an MLA or because she was converted to Islam, on the face of it, is of little importance. Unfortunately the matter is not that simple.

India is a pluralistic state, all can practice their faith openly without fear. Here we have a lady, who was earlier from BJP and later joined Congress. She wins both election – in 2006 and 2011, on different party tickets. Thus it is clear that party symbol did not matter. She is now marrying another person, without divorcing the earlier husband. How can an elected people’s representative do this? Nobody asked that question. It certainly beg for an answer. May be she can be disqualified for this reason alone. All have to acknowledge that marriage is a personal affair and public have no role. But please, she is a public figure and those who elected her are sensitive towards her. Hence both should have mutual respect for each other. MLA has clearly violated this bond. Reportedly people from her constituency have asked her not to enter the area. Of course, prima facie, even this is wrong. But violence, took place only when MLA challenged them. Of course it is for the law and judiciary to take the call. But, surely MLA could have saved the situation. Again there is a larger issue. Conversion in India is a thorny issue. If the man and woman are in love with each other, where does the religion comes. She could have married the man without converting to his religion. Why this should be a condition? Meeya Beebi raazi ho tho, kya karega kaazi. Go to court and become husband and wife, provided of course, you have legally and formally given up your first husband. But then politicians in India are a class apart. They are so-called servants of people, just before election, after that they are the masters. Fortunately this episode has not taken any sectarian turn. Yes, Indians are becoming wiser!

WEST BENGAL: Cornered from all angles, from her own actions of hyper ego, Mamata has done what was best under the circumstances, “Mamata tells her MPs to vote for Bengal”, informed the print media. Of course, she had absolutely no choice. 

These days Mamata Banerjee is in the news for all wrong reasons. She has lost the goodwill with which she romped home, humiliating the 'Bhadralok'. The victory ruined her sense of proportion. She started seeing visions of a kingmaker. She clearly appears to be enjoying the role of a king maker and king breaker, rather than being the king herself. King has the responsibility and kingmaker has no responsibility. She enjoyed putting the UPA govt. in dock, rightly or wrongly. She became a non-dependable maverick, just like what Jayalalitha did to Vajpayee government. In the presidential election, she clearly thought she can play a crucial role and it just devastated her. It almost cost her association with UPA. No sooner, her partner in the venture, Mulayam Singh was pulled into the other side on-board by the Congress, she was rudely awakened to her vulnerability.

Yes, realising that MPs of Trinamool, despite her diktat, may still vote for Pranab Mukherjee the UPA candidate, she painfully realised that discretion is the better part of the valour. So instead of Pranab Mukherjee the Congress nominee, she said ‘Vote for Bengal’. It was a face saving  move, after the receipt of letter from Mukherjee requesting her to vote for him.

MAHARASHTRA: If some of the Muslims in India feel betrayed, you may have to agree with them without justifying their sense of betrayal. We have heard in the media about the discrimination perpetrated by police in Maharashtra in the police detention of Muslims on suspicion only. Once detained, they are left to the mercy of God. What kind of a future these detained people can look forward to, in the country of their birth! What responsibility the society should have towards such victims of circumstances?

Yes, in police custody there may be all kinds of people from diverse background for umpteen reasons. They all deserve to be treated with a sense of responsibility as quickly and as fairly as possible. But they are all languishing in the jails interminably. It speaks very poorly of the entire police system. Why we are insensitive to this socio/religious dimension of our criminal justice system? And how many of them die in custody, either due to police high handedness or due to internal physical imbalances caused by the detention. In any case, the responsibility of the police is not reduced or eliminated.

In 2002, a 27 year old engineer, Khwaja Yunus died in police custody. Holding the police responsible for the death, the Bombay high Court awarded Rs: 20 lakh as compensation on April 10, 2012. Earlier in 2008, the Maharashtra govt. on its own, having accepted it as a custodial death, gave the family of K. Yunus Rs: 3 lakh as compensation. The family went to court, seeking punishment for those who are responsible for their son’s death, so also an enhanced compensation to be paid. 

But the government in Mumbai, despite its complete culpability not only has not punished its policemen for the death of Khwaj Yonus, in their custody, but also failed to comply by the Bombay High Court order to pay the compensation. It was clearly a breach of court order by the Prathviraj Chavan government. It is a clear case of justice denied, not merely delayed.

It is a good news for the criminals and anti-social elements in Maharashtra. “Conviction rate is worst” says Maharashtra Home Minister R R Patil. Should police celebrate with the criminals at this apathetic statement of its Home Minister? According to reports it is a poor 8.2% for the year 2011-12, supposedly lowest in the entire country. As per the available data, in 1994 it was 34.5% came down to 18% in 1997. Thus it came down by almost 50% in just 3 years. This trend continued year after year to register at 8.2% for 2011-12. This is a sad reflection, in a state claiming to be the best among police in India, but conviction is falling. The reason is not far to seek. For arresting, you do not need proof. A complaint or a suspicion is enough for the police to arrest anybody, especially those with little or no clout. But, police have time and again failed, across the country, not just in Maharashtra, to prove the case, for varieties of reasons like inadequate evidence gathering, poor investigation, lack of co-ordination between police and prosecutor. But the most important is the ability of criminals to influence the course of  evidence compiling and investigation itself. Minister while accepting the flaws failed to admit that influence peddlers and the police vulnerability are the significant reasons for the courts to let go a criminal. There are any number of cases where police failed to file charge-sheets within stipulated period of time, and courts have dismissed the case. As usual if you do not want to go cracking, you create committees. Already two committees, RR Patil has formed, one to tell “how to improve conviction rate” the other to “ensure that acquittals come down”. Both are same but he is informing his gullible Legislative colleagues, that he is forming two committees to get into the problem.He is taking them in circles. No questions asked. Committees will only dilute the seriousness of the issue, which is primarily a case of police failure.

NEW DELHI: In days of Ramakrishna Hegde, as Chief Minister of Karnataka, the Times of India always carried news inimical to Hegde in front page, and any report favourable to Hegde would be consigned incognito to some inside pages making it difficult to find easily. It was a clearly visible bias of the 4th estate towards the then Karnataka C.M.

Without doubt The Hindu, which claims itself as ‘India’s National News Paper since 1878', can be accused of similar bias. Quoting from the memoir of former President APJ Abdul Kalam, the news paper had, on the first front page had this report ‘Keep off Gujarat, Kalam was advised.’ In fact this news item appeared in a box. The report informs that the then Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee was not comfortable with Mr Kalam wanting to visit Gujarat and had apparently asked “Do you consider visiting Gujarat at this time essential?” Whether publication of this item was required to be on the first page in bold letters? is a question which certainly demands an answer. But what exposed 'The Hindu' mindset was the report on the same book, where ‘Gujarat government was shown in better light, when all through his trip to Gujarat, he was provided with more than appropriate protocol so also that CM Narendra Modi had accompanied Mr Kalam to all places he visited and generally expressed satisfaction about the trip. This report, when taken up by L K Advani, like Times of India, was consigned to page no. 10 under the title “Why did media ignore Kalam compliment to Modi”. this is how most of the media behave, never evenhanded.

Kuldeep Nayyar, is a respected senior name in journalism. He is into different government appointed commissions and committees. But it is sad that these senior journalists too have their own political baggages which they never jettison in the larger interest of the society. Recently his book ‘Beyond the Lines’ was published where he referred to Ayodhya imbroglio. Ayodhya is a very fertile ground for most writers who keep blaming one against the other, so that they can sell their books better. Drain inspection is a popular pastime for most committed intellectuals, writers and journalists. In his book he had referred to P V Narasimha Rao in not so pleasant terms. Of course, our ‘very concerned’ media took it up from there and designed its headline “When Ayodhya is being demolished P V N Rao was busy in Pooja”. So both Kuldeep Nayyar, the ‘eminent’ journalist & writer was joined by his other journalist fellow travelers in condemning the dead man. Surely dead man cannot be rubbishing their tales. Fortunately for the anguished soul of former PM, Rao, an IPS officer Kishor Kunal appeared and gone public with rubbishing Kuldeep Nayyar and therefore his journo friends. Quoting from Madhav Godbole’s book ‘An Unfinished Innings’, Kishor Kunal was emphatic that during those troubled days of Babri demolition, PVN Rao was neither sleeping not was engaged in Pooja. According to Mr Kunal, Mr Godbole, the then Home Secretary was continuously monitoring the events and was reporting it every half-an hour to the PM so also was detailing it in the Home Ministry log book. The information, Mr Kunal  is giving is available to anybody to cross check. Are you there Mr Nayyar, can you hear! Hence as a journalist you have a duty to pursue the truth and tell only the truth. Don’t tell 'cock-n-bull' story to please your political masters. You are a journalist first and last. In fitness of things it is best you remain a journalist without the baggage of your political ambivalence.

Upon the quitting of Pranab Mukherjee as Finance Minister, a former Finance Minister and current Prime Minister took over as Finance Minister. That is a good news for India, which according to the media and the India Inc. credit Dr Singh as a reformer. Even the respected TIME magazine of the U.S. has given the credit to Dr Manmohan Singh for the reforms of 1991 which opened the flood gate of economic activities that followed. In the same breath the magazine also branded him under achiever, while quoting Swapan Das Gupta “While people talk fondly of his impact in1991, they talk less fondly of the legacy he will leave behind in 2014”.

Everybody miss the point. If as a Prime Minister, Dr Singh cannot make a difference to the PMO, how could he have made the difference as Finance Minister? He could have only made a proposal as FM to the then Prime Minister PVN Rao. It was PVN Rao who steered the reform as the leader of the government of the day in 1991. Dr Singh is an, out and out, bureaucrat and therefore shall do only those which were told to be done. Of course, he had the opportunity of a life time to prove himself, decisive and action oriented. But he missed the bus. He allowed himself to be led by people who had their vested interest. In the process, all got the bad name, including Dr Singh. He is a transparently honest person and all know about it. But he is very reticent-closemouthed- when it comes to opposition, especially BJP, the main opposition party. He did not believe in bonhomie with the largest opposition party. He did not give the importance, they deserved. Purely by arithmetic, they are the 2nd largest party in the parliament, and none of UPA allies can match that except Congress. So it is in the interest of the nation that he takes them seriously and develop friendship. All through his 8 years at the helm of the government it was very clearly seen that he failed miserably to deal with the main opposition as a leader of world’s largest democracy. This is a point everybody in the media, including the TIME failed to take note and comment.

So Pranab Kumar Mukherjee has become the 13th President of Democratic Republic of India. All the speculations of miracles by Sangma and his supporters came to a naught. He romped home with close to 70% of votes cast. Of course, there was no doubt in the numbers game which was heavily loaded in his favour.

From July 25th he shall be the defacto head of the state, powerful yet powerless or can it be-powerless yet powerful. Yes, it depends on people and circumstances.

However looking back, he will breath easy from now on. No nitty gritty of daily ministerial pulls and pressures. Actually for Pranab Mukherjee it is like a retirement assignment. After five decades of active political life, at 77 he has retired into Rashtrapathi Bhavan.

Of course, other two, who were full time politicians to go straight into the Viceregal palace were as old as him. But Pranab Mukherjee is entering the august accommodation when the country is fully awake about rights and wrongs. He is one of the 15 ministers, against whom Anna Team asked for investigation. Controversy was always a part of Pranab Mukherjee. He is a man who know too many details of murky goings on within the portals of parliament. In fact an English daily from Mumbai wrote him off well before his election as President of India. It wrote, in its editorial “Pranab is a huge failure”, accusing him of having contributed a good deal to the current economic mess. May be someday some journalist or a writer shall come up with startling details. After having worked for over 50 years mostly in senior positions and the perks that go with it, couldn’t there be another candidate non-controversial? In India there were so many, who deserved to be in the Rashtrapathi Bhavan. Accepting the victory Pranab Mukherjee had reportedly stated “I have received more than what I have given”. It’s a very frank statement. It is true of all politicians, but none have said that. But they still want to receive more and more. This is the tragedy of India.

Presidential election is over and the new incumbent has already taken charge at Rashtrapathi Bhavan. So Pranab is in and Pratibha is out. But strangely while there were lot of writings on the new president Pranab Mukherjee, may not be necessarily interesting or otherwise, there hasn’t been any media comments on the outgoing President Pratibha. Of course there were stories about some controversies involving her husband and her brother, in the beginning of her term. There were also stories on her foreign jaunts with her jamboori of relatives. Then there was this land controversy in Pune from defence estate for her proposed retirement home, which under relentless media pressure, she gave up.

Yes, of all stories that made their rounds in the media, the most talked about was the presidential pardon. She reportedly pardoned some 35 persons from the gallows to life imprisonment. According to some in the media it was like mercy overdrive. Some called it flood of mercy and called her Goddess of mercy. The reason for such remarks was because, she cleared a huge backlog left behind by, her supposedly less kind, predecessors, since the 1990s.That was clearly unprecedented. What makes this clemency shocking is the brutality of the crime of the convicted that was completely overlooked while granting clemency. Was Pratibha insensitive to the degree of cruelty perpetrated on the victims, by these convicts? Or else how could she grant clemency for mass murderers, rapists who killed women and children after raping and other equally gruesome crimes? What confounded most critics is, that these criminals had committed the ‘rarest of rare’ crimes   of human violence, as per all judicial pronouncements and yet Ms. Patil allowed them breathing space. The question that rankled all was, did she consider these cases with fairness and justice or just unfairly hurried to close the matter? Answer probably is 'NO'. Because in her hurry she even commuted the death sentence of a convict who had already died in 2007, some 5 years ago, probably even before she became president. This clearly is the misuse of the clemancy power of the president, and non application of mind.

WORLD: Washington datelined news informed about the US appointment of envoy to Myanmar, after 22 years. While it is a good news that the army rule of five decades is slowly opening the country for democratic reforms, the role of U.S. in Myanmar is cut out. As the leader of the democratic world U.S. has great responsibility to protect institution of democracy worldwide. There are still great many issues that are captive in the country to the whims and fancies of its military rulers. Although most of the issues are concerning its own Buddhist population, the problem of persecution of Muslims of Bangla origin, Rohingyas living in the areas bordering Myanmar and Bangladesh, for generations, is of a serious nature. Human rights abuse by the army against the ethnic minorities is well documented, and Mr Derek Mitchell, the U.S. ambassador to Rangoon will have his hands full, if he is a true diplomat, whose worry is not only to represent U.S. commercial interest but also the universal human rights of all Burmese people irrespective of its ethnic, linguistic, racial diversity. Besides, Ms Aung San Suu Kyi, who won her parliamentary seat recently, and travelled to Oslo to receive her Nobel Peace Prize, has reportedly not spoken on the issue, despite questioning. Why is Buddha Quite?!

Election of Mohammed Mursi, as the first freely elected president of United Arab Republic of Egypt is indeed a great news for the entire Arab world. He is reportedly, the Arab world’s first freely elected Islamic president. So after 84 years of struggle, the Muslim Brotherhood, has arrived and has tasted political power. In his first public speech at the Cairo University he pledged that Egypt would not reverse the democratic course, it won after hard struggle. His is the first democratically elected presidentship, since the overthrow of the monarchy some 60 years ago. In his address, President Mursi reportedly, reached out to both Muslims and Christians in “drawing a better future for Egypt and in fulfilling the goals of the revolution, freedom, social justice and dignity”. Hope and wish, this election in Egypt heralds, a new phase in the democratic evolution of the Arab World for the larger good of both Arabs and the world at large. ‘Peace be with all’ Amen.

If Egyptians were more matured to elect their new president democratically, with least amount of bloodshed, there is a democratically inspired movement in Syria, there is an unnecessary flow of blood leading to senseless killing of hundreds of its civilian and army population. There is a kind of civil war. Only because, its president Bashar Assad, who inherited the presidentship from his father is refusing to step down. Entire democratic world is asking this Bashar to step down, in the larger interest of Syria and its people, but he is being propped by other two non-democratic, but powerful allies, Russia and China, who are blocking the pro-people change. In all fairness, Bashar Assad must step down. Assad and his family thinks Syria is their private property, and in principle both Russia and China, who are communists should oppose Syrian president, who is a brutal bourgeois oppressor. But only because U.S. and other European countries, besides India, want the change, these two are opposing the change. It is very sad that the unrelenting bloodshed has not made the Chinese and Russian leadership change their stand to force this recalcitrant  Assad to give up his cruel authoritarian regime.

Then there is this story of “Hardline Islamists destroy Timbaktu Religious Treasures”. The town of Timbuktu or Tombouctou, known also as “city of 333 saints,” was raped. “It is a crime” said a source close to the local Imam. The hardline Islamist Ansar Dine group went on rampage, reportedly after 2 days of UNESCO announcing Timbuktu as an ‘endangered world heritage site’.

According to reports the group has vowed to wipe out every religious shrine in the fabled town. This is quite simply an act of extreme intolerance of a weird kind. What are they trying to convey with this destruction of ancient structure of their very own religious symbols?

There was this funny news “Pak DAG gets notice for polishing shoes in India” in the print media. DAG is Deputy Attorney General Mr Khurshid Khan. DAG of Pakistan received a notice from his legal fraternity, the bar association of Supreme Court of Pakistan. These lawyers from Islamabad accused the DAG of “defaming the nation”. The crime of the DAG was, that he polished shoes outside place of worship in India. DAG had reportedly stated that he performed voluntary service at Gurudwara, including cleaning shoes, during a recent visit to India as “Penance for crimes committed by Taliban”. Responding to the reported notice DAG Mr Khan had asked “What is constituted as defaming the country. Ajmal Kasab’s alleged killing of Indians or a Pakistani polishing the shoes of Hindus, Sikhs and Christians outside their places of worship?" It appears these lawyers were unhappy not about polishing shoes but the place where the DAG did his penance, since India is anathema for majority of Pakistanis. They would not have bothered much, if this 'kaarseva' was in China or in U.S. This is Pak for you.

J.Shriyan