MONTH IN PERSPECTIVE

MAHARASHTRA: Khwaja Yunus, 27 year old engineer from Parbhani in Maharashtra, was picked up in 2003 January, for his alleged role in the 2002 Ghatkoper (North Mumbai) bomb blast. While being transported to Aurangabad, allegedly he escaped and police alleged that in the encounter that ensued, he was killed. But the CID inquiry ordered by the Bombay High Court revealed that he had died in police custody. API Sachin Vaze, naiks  Rajendra Tiwari and Rajaram Nikam and Constable Sunil Desai are the four accused in the case.

Recently, Advocate RV Mokashi, the Special Public prosecutor for the CID in this case, had resigned, without assigning any reasons. Reportedly Mokashi is known to be an upright lawyer of high integrity, hence legal circle was rather shocked at his abrupt exit. 

The mother of Younus, Aasiya Begum was despondent at the latest development, but appeared determined to fight for the justice. “I have seen so many setbacks, this is just one more. As a mother who lost her son whose life had just begun and, who was not allowed to see even his dead body, I am not going to be deterred by any setbacks. I will fight till I die”.

If this is the anguished cry of a mother for justice, how many victims of 1993 Mumbai riots are still waiting in the wings for the deliverance of justice? After 20 years, on 21st March 2013, Supreme Court disposed of appeals by death row convicts so also actor Sanjay Dutt's in the blast case. But the survivors of the riot, can’t even get cases registered against culprits if they happen to be policemen. So the question that persists in Maharashtra, how are we going to address the issue of police non accountability for the crimes they have committed in the uniform. Sooner this is tackled in all seriousness the better for the country, especially when it involves vulnerable sections of our society. 

That Maharashtra is going thru an unprecedented drought in vast parts of the state is not a news. It is unfortunately a fact of life for a huge section of agrarian Maharashtra. It is an irony that the Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, a Sharad Pawar protégé, has only badly exposed himself of his insensitivity by saying “if the dams were dry he could not fill them even if he urinated”. That remark was not only crude, it exposed his real mental makeup. It showed that he and his ilk are in politics for power and pelf only and not for public service. But the height of the insensitivity was the tender for food supplies to the official bungalows of CM Prithviraj Chavan and Deputy CM Ajit Pawar, in a state reeling under even acute drinking water shortage.

It is very well known that every ministerial bungalow has a kitchen and kitchen staff attached to it. They cater to the households as well as their visitors/guests and staff. But obviously CM & Dy CM are not happy with their kitchen preparations. 

The tender for food was for a year, according to the paper carrying the tender details - devils printed as Rs: 100 crores, but officials clarified as only Rs: 1 crore. Assuming it is only Rs: 1 crore it works to over Rs: 4 lakhs per month, per bungalow or over Rs: 13000/- per day, assuming, the CM or Dy CM are at the bungalow on all days of the year and eat for all those 365 days, which is extremely unlikely. What can you call this, ‘an extravaganza’!!, in a state reeling under a very bad drought. And did they say that they are very pained at the suffering of farmers due to the acute shortage of water! Haven’t they!

The media savvy crowd has learnt in all details how law makers (MLAs) of Maharashtra had beaten up a policeman and have remained defiant, and how the political machinery made a drama of investigation and exhonerated all rogue MLAs and then got a case registered against the policeman himself, with no higher-ups in the police hierarchy coming to the defence of hapless policeman. 

If the entire episode has exposed the politics of arrogance of elected representatives, their utility for the state and its people remain a mirage.

A recent report titled “20 children die waiting for their open-heart surgery at the KEM hospital, as Maharashtra MLAs debate their privileges and rights”, has hit the nail on the issue of wastage of state resources which include public money spent on these MLAs upkeep as well as the expenditure on expensive elections. 

MLAs who are so upset with their rights and privileges have rarely shown, writes Anil Singh, “the same sensitivity when it comes to the grievances of those who have elected them to the assembly. Hundreds of farmers have committed suicide, the state is facing the worst drought in 40 years, hospitals don’t keep 10% of the beds for poor patients, resident medical officers in civic hospitals are contracting TB, nothing is coming out of Adarsh scam, co-operative bank scam, the irrigation scam. Even the death of 20 children awaiting open-heart surgery since January 1, did not move our MLAs. No one asked why KEM hospital has just one heart-lung machine despite being the premier hospital of the country’s richest civic body”.

Yes there is something seriously wrong with our political class. And as years pass, it is becoming increasingly bad. Is there hope?

The 4 week extension granted by the Supreme Court to actor Sanjay Dutt, to surrender to the jail authorities, has expectedly raised uncomfortable questions. Because, some Rs: 300 crores worth of business is at stake, you can get away, even temporarily from the application of law. And they call it ‘humanitarian’ isn’t it! What is so ‘humane’ about it, is a question begging for answer. If humanitarian angle is the reason for Supreme Court to act, then Zaibunnisa Kazi, suffering from cancer, was an eminently deserving case. She is old and infirm too. But quite strangely she was denied any consideration. Surely legal eagles should not suffer from such selective responses or else the expectation of justice from the ultimate arbiter will be lost.

Mumbra, in the Thane District of Maharashtra has always been a predominantly lower middle Muslim families. For varieties of reasons, including poverty, Mumbra grew as a ghetto. Of course governments can always make a difference. They are there, only to make a difference, but they do not do it in all places and to all people squarely and fairly. Mumbra didn’t receive the attention, like many other suburbs of Mumbai, for, once again, varieties of reasons. The growing population of Mumbra needed houses, and there were many, who jumped into supply the need, damn the law. Excess profiteering is always the bane of all business. House construction in Mumbra was no different. They sold the houses in Mumbra cheap, but both land & labour too was cheap in Mumbra, and therefore, housing contractors/owners could have provided better houses at relatively cheaper prices. But to give it cheap they compromised on materials usage and safety measures, away from the governmental regulation. Result had to be crashes causing avoidable deaths. So suddenly the govt in Thane are shaken off their slumber, drugged by corruption. They come cracking on all unauthorized buildings, and hundreds are suddenly rendered homeless. This is indeed the height of insensitivity. For the failure of the state governments, compounded by greedy developers and haste of gullible people, all added the sudden rooflessness. Of course, wrongs have to be corrected but it has to be a planned demolition with some kind of alternatives for the smoother transition. But then authorities have always looked for soft targets. Yeh Mera India.

Our media, like many other social mediums play the ball for the haves, like it or not. Their family histories, fortunately not the juicier ones, their tantrums, their celebrations hit media headlines. Of course,  Shobha De, unlike this writer, could be the most qualified and competent to write on the idiosyncrasies and other features of affluent and powerful of Mumbai city.

And comes the news that “Ambani Brothers have joined hands in a Rs:1200 crores deal”. Now, what is the deal, may not be important. But the fact that these two warring siblings, have at long last decided to shake hands, is an earth shattering news, to hit the print media front page headlines, of just about all major dailies, both English and some of the other Indian language newspapers, is something to be taken with a pinch of salt. After all, it was some business deal. At best, it could have appeared in some business/economy page of the newspaper. But to appear in the front page, that too as a ‘headline’!?

It wasn’t long ago that stones were found in the fuel tank of Anil Ambani’s chopper parked in some helipad in Juhu, in North West Mumbai. Was it some sinister plan to annihilate the junior Ambani? Then the investigating police found that one of the technical hand at the helipad knew more about it. He was to have been interrogated, or was interrogated, but the press didn’t get the wind of what probably this technical hand had blurted. And one not so fine morning he was found dead on the railway tracks near the Mumbai suburban Santacruz railway station. Reportedly he had no business to be at Santacruz railway station. He was not staying anywhere near Santacruz. His abrupt death or was it murder, left many questions unanswered, including how did stones get into the fuel tank of Anil Ambani’s helicopter? Under whose instruction it happened? Was somebody planning to kill Anil Ambani? Who would have benefitted by his death?

In the media, nobody asked these questions, so were the police quite. File closed? Nobody knows. May be it’s a private affair of the Ambani family. Why should, we, the ordinary Indians, know about it! Similarly why should we know about the Rs:1200 crores deal between the, now foes – now friends, brothers?!

How many of us remember the attempt on the life of Nusli Wadia, the owner of Bombay Dying Group, the once upon a time competitor to Ambanis? Police investigation reportedly did indicate the involvement of one of Reliance Industries Ltd. director. But that was the last heard of it. Yes since then much of the water has flown down the Haji Ali to Arabian Sea off  Breach Candy, the Mumbai water front of rich & powerful. Life had gone on then, so shall it, this time round too. Keep smiling. This is Yeh Mera India.

PUNJAB: President Pranab Mukherjee is not the same as Pranab Mukherjee, the former Finance Minister. As Finance Minister, he may have dilly dallied lot of time, taking  decisions, for reasons known and unknown. He is a man who knew too many details of financial misdemeanors from across the socio/political spectrum. 

But as President, probably he has turned over a new leaf. He does not procrastinate. Right or wrong, he has taken quick decisions on Ajmal Kasab and Afzal Guru. The mercy petitions of both were rejected and the law took its ultimate course. Now comes the case of one Dharmapal, a rape convict, who while out on parole, murdered the victim and four members of her family in 1993. In 1999, he was awarded death sentence. A person who not only raped a hapless woman, then without mercy murdered the victim and her 4 family members. How does he deserve mercy? And the powers that be, couldn’t decide his mercy plea. A mercy plea is a democratic legal option available to all convicts. But there is a system in place to deal with it. And sadly, this system failed for all 14 years to decide on this unfortunate case. It was left to the present incumbent Pranab Daa to decide, and he was cleared to be hanged on 15th April. Procrastination is always an enemy of progress. If as Finance Minister Pranab Daa has failed, he does not want to fail as the occupant of Rashtrapathi Bhavan. He has sent unmistakable signals. Two cheers to President Pranab Mukherjee.  

GOA: SPCA – State Police Complaint Authority, probably the first of its kind in the country was operational in Goa since some time without any fan fare. It is truly a very positive step in criminal justice delivery system, especially when there are n number of instances of police high handedness and lack of accountability for the actions of commission and omission from the police fraternity. Although there are no details available in the media about its functioning, apparently there are about 50 cases pending before the SPCA in Panaji. The former chairman, Eurico da silva, who resigned in Jan. this year, is a politician. No details are available on his track record. However, the recent incumbent Justice RMS Kandeparkar, a retd. High Court judge has taken it, rather, in quite earnest. Reportedly, he took up two cases on the first day itself. This is the seriousness needed in making the ordinary victims of police brazenness see some hope that justice may, after all, come their way. While media should certainly highlight such development with greater visibility, Government in Goa deserves to be congratulated for their path breaking initiative.  All states must emulate the Goan initiative. There are states like U.P., Bihar, West Bengal, Haryana, Punjab who certainly need SPCA in the respective state capitals. Incidentally, it was in 2006, that Supreme Court had suggested this SPCAs, as a part of the police reform.

GUJARAT: There is something, which is not really healthy about what BJP is trying to do in going head-over-heels in projecting Narendra Modi, as a future savior of India. Narendra Modi, may be personally incorruptible, but is he the best that has happened to India? Answer is an emphatic ‘NO”. Being incorruptible is definitely a very positive aspect of a leader. But a leader has to be also sensitive. He has also to be open to suggestions, to ideas from others. Modi appears to be rigid. He has his own idea of what constitutes growth. No doubt, being, a person with no apparent financial self interest, although a big plus point, his no holds barred ego, can be a big stumbling block for his ambition for a role. Even in his own Gujarat, he is not accepted, on face value, fully. His detractors have all kinds of stories to buttress his negative image. Some may be true and some may be false. But the lapping up by a section of BJP led by its president Rajnath Singh, can create hurdles by this over-kill. If at all BJP wants to offer alternative governance at the centre, a mere Modi-fication of the model is not enough. Development has to have a human face with inclusiveness spoken by Rahul Gandhi. Like Robert Lynds ‘Sermon on shaving’, to have a clean shave, one needs to have not only a good razor, but also a good brush and an equally good lather. Hence there has to be marriage of ideas for a human governance to evolve as progressive and humane. Something Rajnath Modi & Co has to realize. 

WEST BENGAL: The first time Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee appears to be always on short fuse, just about to burst. She is more in the news for wrong reasons and right enough media is asking ‘if she wants to be a one term Chief Minister’? 

To protest the death of one of their student leaders, Sudipto Gupta, in Kolkatta, which Mamata Banerjee had dismissed as “small and petty” while at a cultural function at Kolkatta, the CPI(M) students’ wing had gheraoed her and her cabinet colleagues outside Yojana Bhavan in New Delhi.

Amit Mitra, West Bengal Finance Minister was allegedly man handled by the SFI  crowd, tearing his kurta, while Mamata Banerjee was safely escorted. Here what needs to be noted is, Mamata was clearly told not to get down from her car before entering the Yojana Bhavan gate. But, as if to challenge the crowd, she decided to walk past the crowd and ministers just followed her. It was very stupid of Mamata to do what she did. She invited trouble, despite police advising against walking past the crowd, then she calls Delhi unsafe. She even invented, despite police escorting her to safety, that these boys could have killed her.

As if to avenge the ‘humiliation’ of their leaders, Trinamool congress protesters stormed past the gate keeper in Presidency College and attacked students. They went on a rampage, breaking the lock of the gate and ransacking the 195 year old Bakers Laboratory. Vice Chancellor Prof Malabika Sarkar had reportedly remarked that ‘this unprovoked attack on peaceful students within the campus needed to be condemned a hundred times’.

An upset Governor, who is also the chancellor of the university, apologised to the students for the happening and demanded apology from CPI (M) for the ‘so-called’ attack in Delhi on the West Bengal Chief Minister. An usually no-nonsense former national security advisor was combative against the opposition apparently under the ever changing political equations at the centre.  CPI (M) on their part is taking up the ‘politics’ of Governor M K Narayanan to the President Pranab Mukherjee. He was acting probably under ‘instructions’ from the centre, to keep the ‘maverick Mamata’ as one paper called her, in good humour. But clearly she is doing disservice to West Bengal and to her own personal and political image.

NEW DELHI: NPA or Non Performing Assets of public sector banks has always been a subject on which the managers of this countries finances paid only a lip service. Reportedly as on 31.12.2012, NPA figures for these banks have been pegged at Rs.1.55 lakh crores and corporate defaulters stand at some 54%. ‘Whose father’s what goes’. Not many in public space have either discussed it or wrote about it. Because it is the public money, not many are bothered about it. The story of this NPA has a long history, since cheating too has long history among we homo sapiens. It is a well known and accepted norm that no loan is given without proper security, except micro credits under some government scheme. Therefore any loan becoming non-performing or non-recoverable, is only because something is amiss somewhere. Either it is the bank official assessing the loan worthiness of the loanee, or the Bank has grossly misrepresented the facts. Or both official and the loaner have colluded to defraud the bank. These three possibilities, more often than not, are the reasons for a loan to become an NPA. Of course there are reasons of force majeure, or act of god or something similar. But they are not many, and there are formal and accepted norms to treat them as bad debts. Hence most of the NPAs which have remained in the books for years on is only because of three reasons noted above. Thus, it is the avarice of some, over the national interest, which preceded to cause this virtual national loot. There has to be therefore laws or court intervention to check this rot not just statement by Finance Minister “Bank should recover loans from affluent promoters” in the wake of “La affair Mallya & Co.” Responsible person should be made accountable by both, making good the loss and undergo criminal liability terms, of the law of the land, period. 

There’s an ongoing fierce debate about the speech by Rahul Gandhi and Narendra Modi to the captains of India Inc, recently. Of course there have been all kinds of analysis by pro Congress group and pro BJP group to primarily run down the other. But frankly both had their own plus points. It is not the fault of Rahul Gandhi that he is born into Ghandy or Gandhi households, but he appears to be a good human being. To begin with it is indeed very important to be a good human being, ability can always be hired. But what is relevant and therefore important, but strangely not touched by any of the supporters or the critics of Rahul Gandhi, is the decisiveness of taking action against your own people, people close to you. Modi has scored hands down, on this count. At the top he has no friend or relation either to help or someone who would misuse his position. Same cannot be said about Rahul Gandhi, especially when there are characters like Robert Vadra and his family involved in questionable transactions but yet not subjected to public scrutiny.  This shall be the most important corner stone of the moral tone of his leadership. His shouting brigade must understand this, sooner they take note of it, to make amends, the better for the Congress, take it or leave it. 

When, K.C. Chakraborthy, the RBI deputy governor gave a clean chit to three private sector banks of any charge of money laundering, he was clearly jumping the gun, when nobody asked him for his intervention in the issue. 

News that came from New Delhi was “ICICI Bank suspends 18 of its employees” as soon as the Cobrapost online magazine exposed the goings on in the bank vide their sting operation. The sting had revealed how bank employees were accepting black money from customers to convert it into white.

Thus, any clean chit by RBI or its higher functionaries without knowing the truth is highly objectionable since they are bankers to the banks, and therefore legal guardians of these financial institutions to ensure that they function above board in a very transparent manner.  

‘The act of a man demanding money from his father-in-law to set up a business six months after marriage will not come within the ambit of dowry’, observed Supreme Court, the other day.

Prima facie, this can, at best, be only an opinion of some learned judges. This can equally be argued as a case of dowry demand.

The case is of one Vipin Jaiswal of Nampally, Hyderabad, who allegedly demanded Rs. 50000/- from his wife Meenaxi, after six months of marriage, to start some business. Meenaxi apparently came home to her father to inform her parents of the demand by her husband Vipin, and did not return. That was around late 1996. In April 1999 Meenaxi committed suicide. Family of Meenaxi probably filed a case of dowry demand and both trial court and Andhra Pradesh High Court held Vipin responsible for his wife’s death under Dowry Death provision (304B) of IPC.

Here, Meenaxi’s death by suicide may or may not be due to the demand of Rs: 50000/- for business by the husband, as she has not, apparently, blamed her husband for her suicide. It could be the family, which refused to pay the sum, and therefore made the life of their daughter difficult and probably has forced her to commit suicide. Here both parents of the daughter, so also husband can be questioned from different legal angles. The fact remains that husband demanded money from his wife, and not from any of her family members or friends of her family. A wife is vulnerable for pressure, especially those freshly married, and therefore she is the first port of call for any monetary demand from the husband. This was primarily the reason why she left home and never returned. If Vipin loved his wife, and family of Meenaxi were really unable to meet his demand, he had the option of taking the wife back, which responsibility he abdicated. Therefore it could be surmised that for him Rs: 50,000/- was more important than his wife. 

Similarly, the family could have played some via-media role, since there was no violence by husband on wife, to bring about the rapprochement to save the marriage and the life of their daughter,  which they didn’t. Thus both played villain to the detriment of an innocent girl who had to die for no apparent reason. The courts need to go beyond the mere interpretation of the legal provisions to make a humane case of such litigations. 

News reading public is fully aware of the statement “The timing of the raid is most unfortunate”, attributing it the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Dr Singh was reacting to a CBI raid on the residential premises of MK Stalin, son of DMK supremo Karunanidhi. Prima facie, the reaction of the Prime Minister of a country on the searches by the highest investigation agency of the government, is totally uncalled for. Come to think of it, even Chidambaram, Kamal Nath & Kapil Sibal trio too, had reportedly remarked “We strongly disapprove the CBI action”. A sly interpretation of the above remark could also mean “How can you do it without our knowledge?” Reportedly Dr Singh had slammed the CBI for the raid, while CBI had insisted that it was routinely planned and not targeted. If the above details are, which are in the public domain, to be believed, then the latest report of alleged “Govt vetting of CBI report” can be equally believed. It was the court monitored, but CBI conducted investigation on the coal mine allocations under Dr Singh, also known as coalgate. While some news papers have made it as a BJP ‘red-herring’ there were others like CPM’s Sitaram Yachuri and JD(U)’s Shivanand Tiwari were wondering that this was for the first time that they heard of such a thing as clearing the CBI report by the political bosses, before submitting to the court. That’s indeed an expose of another kind.

WORLD: Like communists the world over feel, as part of a larger whole, Muslims too feel that they are bound by an universal brotherhood, or at least that is the impression making its rounds. Be it Muslim brotherhood in Egypt, or the Palestinian cause, alleged Muslim suffering in India, a good number of Muslim organizations – both peace loving and violent – screams that Islam is in danger. In India, we have seen violent demonstrations, when Al Aqsa mosque was allegedly desecrated, many years ago. However around the same time Pakistani army – consisting of entirely Muslims-was ruthlessly crushing East Pakistanis who are also Muslims. Indian newspapers were carrying stories of Pak army atrocities on East Pakistanis of Bengali speaking Muslims. But strangely, these Indian Muslim groups, who were violently protesting for the alleged desecration of Al Aqsa mosque, in far away Jerusalem, were deafeningly silent on the sufferings of one of their very own, but speaking Bengali, not Urdu. In Jerusalem, it was Arabic, but Indian Muslims, identified themselves more easily with them rather than East Pakistanis of Bengali origin.

This aspect revived itself, after seeing the Shahbagh square demonstration in Dhaka, by young Bangladeshis, who are up against the communalist and those fundamentalists who had opposed the nation’s independence from Pakistan. Dubbed as Bangla Spring, this awakening constitutes a challenge to religious orthodoxy and extreme Islamism. It is a well known fact that there was a section of East Pakistanis, who were opposed to the creation of Bangladesh, who consciously and deliberately took side of West Pakistan, to retain its hold, over East Pakistan. This group, also known as Razakars, actively participated in the horrible acts of violence and genocide against the liberation of forces and the section of Bengali public supporting liberation forces.

Now the life has come full circle for this anti-national forces who are basically Islamic fundamentalists. This is good for Bangladesh and good for peace loving Islam, not necessarily for those hate mongering violent practitioners of the faith. Indian Muslims must take note of this.  

General Pervez Musharaf was always an over confident man. His overconfidence ultimately did him in. He came back home from his English hibernation and self imposed exile with a confident hope that he has solutions to all problems of Pakistan. All Pakistani rulers of the past, except Asif Ali Zardari have always exploited the anti-India feelings among Pakistanis to remain in power. In the anti India campaign, the Pak army always played the key role. His arithmetic that he will be able to revive that atmosphere, if he is successful politically, has turned turtle. 

All his calculations went upside down, when all his electoral nominations were rejected, one after the other. He had four of them. For his political detractors, it was, as if ‘Khuda Bhax’. Icing on the cake for these detractors was the ultimate indignity heaped on the general, by the very same judiciary, he had suspended in 1999, by ordering his arrest. His bid to escape from the court premises to delay the inevitable was not successful and was finally put behind bar.

He was comfortable in England. His overriding ambition coupled with over confidence let him down when the crunch came. That is the sad end to the Mushraf game plan. Future uncertain, for the General.

For all you know, Pope Francis, the temporal head of the Roman Catholics the world over, could be the unlikely game changer in a deeply polarised world. Not only he is simple in his living style, he is straight in his articulations of global issues. While asking for peace in all regions of conflict, whether Middle East, Asia or Africa, he stressed only talk, to confrontation. “In a world divided by greed and easy gain, wounded by selfishness, torn apart by violence linked to drug trafficking and by iniquitous exploitation of natural resources” “Peace be on earth” was his message on Easter Sunday. 

His simplicity without the formal pomp of his predecessors makes him singularly different. “While he has irked the status quoists, he has been accepted whole heartedly by the ordinary people “He connects with people, I feel good about him” was the remark from most  people.

Christianity being the largest religion in the world, the personality of Pope Francis can be the factor that could influence course of global events in the coming days. Hope he holds the candle in an otherwise dark world.

J.Shriyan