Dr Binayak Sen has been released after two years in jail. But did he have to wait two years and did his case have to go up to the Supreme Court to get back his liberty? Isn't there any responsibility on the lower judiciary to exercise its judgment and stand up to the state govt and the state police?
This is a country where the Supreme Court has repeatedly stated that the attitude should be "bail, not jail". And here is a medical doctor who spends two years in jail simply because he sympathises with Naxalites who believe in realising social justice through violence.
And what about those who responsiblel for creating an unjust social order in the first place? Murderers are given bail and let loose on society. But a medical doctor who merely sympathises with Naxalites -- he definitely hasn't turned a gun on anyone -- is deprived of his liberty for two years. Isnt there a thumb rule for judges, especially high court judges to follow?
A similar fate awaits Nimesh Kampani and Minoo Shroff of the Forum of Free Enterprise in Andhra Pradesh. Shroff is said to be biding his time in the UK. Kampani was abroad for several months. So was the artist MF Husain because some intolerant communalists were misusing the law to harass him -- till the Supreme Court stepped in and quashed all proceedings against him.
This is not a matter that concerns only Sen, Kampani, Shroff or Hussain. It concerns you and me. The bell that tolled for them will toll some day for you and me if someone decided to misuse the law against us. It is time we stand up and make the courts aware of this. ###
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Monday, May 25, 2009
The New Killing Fields
Places of workshop are the new conflict and killing fields. Yesterday it was was a gurdwara in Austria. The fallout was in Punjab where public property worth millions has been destroyed. Two days ago a church in Nepal was attacked by those who want to restore the monarchy in that former kingdom. How the monarchy gets restored by killing people praying in a church is beyond understanding.
Mosques get bombed, temples like Akshardham get attacked, chapels in cloistered convents are pillaged and statues broken, altars desecrated...and then the inevitable reaction.
I am reminded of an incident many years ago when a roadside temple was desecrecrated on Mahakali Caves Road in Mumbai. A crowd gathered and sat down on the road to protest, blocking traffic. Among them was a Catholic priest from the nearby SVD Centre. When asked why he had joined the protest, he said he wanted to show his solidarity with those whose feelings were hurt because when a place sacred to some is defiled, that pain is felt by all. Or rather, should be felt by all.
The same could be said of the Babri Masjid. India is still to recover from its destruction, although one of those who witnessed its destruction and was in a way instrumental in that despicable act has now been humbled beyond belief. India's soul is intact, notwithstanding the Advanis, MM Joshis and Uma Bharatis of the far right who think that demolishing a 400-year-old mosque will erase Mughal history in India. ###
Mosques get bombed, temples like Akshardham get attacked, chapels in cloistered convents are pillaged and statues broken, altars desecrated...and then the inevitable reaction.
I am reminded of an incident many years ago when a roadside temple was desecrecrated on Mahakali Caves Road in Mumbai. A crowd gathered and sat down on the road to protest, blocking traffic. Among them was a Catholic priest from the nearby SVD Centre. When asked why he had joined the protest, he said he wanted to show his solidarity with those whose feelings were hurt because when a place sacred to some is defiled, that pain is felt by all. Or rather, should be felt by all.
The same could be said of the Babri Masjid. India is still to recover from its destruction, although one of those who witnessed its destruction and was in a way instrumental in that despicable act has now been humbled beyond belief. India's soul is intact, notwithstanding the Advanis, MM Joshis and Uma Bharatis of the far right who think that demolishing a 400-year-old mosque will erase Mughal history in India. ###
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Headlines today that tell the tale!
Here is a sampling of headlines culled from today's papers (reflectiing my biases and prejudices, of course!)
BJP is back where it was a decade ago
Capital punishment for BJP that wanted capital punishment for Afzal
How Karat nuked his party
Unscrupulous tie-up with TRS did Chandrababu Naidu in
Fortune favours the brave -- Rahul has shown us that there is a new aspirational young India out there, looking for new answers and new methods. He reached out to those voters even as the Mayawatis and Amar Singhs were playing their own sleazy games. These result show that he was right. Victor comes to the brave, to the farsighted and to those are in the right place at the right time (Vir Sanghvi who admits he too got it wrong!)
A vote for decency and development
Silent majority has spoken
The boot for ‘mazboot’ Advani theory - the ‘party with a difference’ was neither found ‘mazboot’ nor capable of roviding a nirnayak (decisive) govt; Advani’s magic just didn’t work
BJP ran a negative campaign – whether it was calling the PM weak or trying to resurrect historic issues. It had nothing to offer people than talking about personalities. Little wonder it lost.
Modi, the man who would have been king, retains Gujarat but pan-India dream is shattered as country rejects ‘Modi model of development’
Modi campaigned in 20 constitutencies in Maharashtra, Sena-BJP won in only three!
Arun Shourie’s ‘Modi for PM’ was a blunder – BJP spokesman Chandan Mitra
Caste politics clearly on the wane
Goodbye to Mandal (caste) and ‘Modi model' (communalism)
Pawar neither king nor kingmaker
Neither Maratha nor Marathi! – Maharashtra turns its back on Pawar the Maratha and Sena which played the Marathi card
###
Small fish swallows big fish!
It would be nice to rejoice over the election results as a long-overdue, sound beating for the communal and murderous BJP and its multiple manifestations like the Ram Sene . But some observers see a more important message in the results that we may ignore at our peril - the power of youth.
The fact is today’s election results are a wake-up call not just to the political parties in the country, but also those in authority everywhere in our country. All day long, political pundits, media analysts, pollsters and political parties have been asking themselves – how did this happen, how did we get it so wrong?
Perhaps one reason is that this election has been driven by youth in a country where 50% of the people are below the age of 21 and 70% below the age of 35. Interestingly, the Congress victory was driven by a young man of 38, relatively young by Indian standards. The old wo/men in the other parties, in the media and even pollsters scoffed at him and his sister who carefully increased their media profile over the past three weeks (see Outook with Priyanka on the cover).
Modi made fun of her as a "gudiya" (doll) and likened Rahul to ’small fish’ in an aquarium. http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=14860179 He said BJP leaders like him are like ‘ocean fish’ who weather big storms, unlike those ‘floating around in aquariums’.
"We are not small fish floating around in the comfort of aquariums, but we weather huge storms to win," he said in an obvious dig at Rahul Gandhi. "We are not flowers cultivated by gardeners of the rich, we have grown up in the forests on our own," Modi said. Now, it turn out the small fish has swallowed the big one which at the end of the day was trying to figure out how it landed in the belly of the small one. Or, to use Modi's other analogy, the mighty forest oak got felled in the storm while the little flower survived.
But apart from the youthfulness of the emerging India, there is another quiet revolutionary happening. Watch this space...tomorrow!
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Panty-bombers beat back the pub-bombers!
Someone recently described the computer as the charkha of the 21st century!
In the last few days, Nisha Susan has shown us a new way of fighting back mindless violence, 21st century Gandhi-style.
This is a case study of how an imaginative approach using the power of digital media, combined with mainstream media, can take on the sledgehammer methods of the muscled and the powerful!
Barely three weeks after he vowed to go round Mangalore on Valentine's Day, with goons, priests and video cameramen in tow, and forcibly marry off unmarried couples celebrating Valentine's Day, Pramod Muthalik has been forced to sit out Valentine's Day in a police cell so that women can celebrate their right to love!
It is a powerful victory for the rational and the balanced.
Barely three weeks ago, this self-styled leader was threatening to force his belief that women ought not to go to pubs, because it was against "Indian culture", on the rest of the world.
What made the difference?
The power of click! Nisha Susan had two options -- stay quiet and accept everything, or meet these people head-on and make fun of them. She chose to click off an imaginative "Pink Chaddi Campaign" of the "Consortium of Pubgoing, Loose and Forward Women" on Facebook on Feb 5 – and made a difference!
"Most women in this country have enough curbs on their lives without a whole new franchise cashing in with their bully-boy tactics. Be imaginative, have fun and fight back!" was her approach.
Print and television media picked up the story of the "panty-bombers vs the pub bombers" five days later, on February 10. Other social networking sites took it up. Bloggers and media columnists jumped in and the word chaddi, normally an unmentionable in conservative Indian society, acquired acceptance as the campaign became the buzz of the country.
By 5 pm on Feb 10, over 5,000 had signed up for the campaign on Facebook. By 8 pm, the number had crossed 8,000, by 11 pm it was 11,000 and by Friday night it had crossed 33,000. By Valentine's Day morning the number was 38,150 and still climbing!
"The content and the form of the movement enthused me. It'll make a point in a cheeky way. This is a way of taking back the space the guardians of morality are trying to take from us. This movement isn't just an activist movement, it's by ordinary women who want to speak up and fight back," one woman told the Main Stream Media (MSM).
Media reports say that the BJP top brass picked up the signals that Yedduurappa did not! He had come out in support of Muthalik's anti "pub culture" campaign, though he said he was against his methods! They packed him off from the Nagpur meeting a day earlier than scheduled and told him they wanted no more negative headlines from Mangalore.
Which is why Muthalik's men called a news conference yesterday, eve of Valentine's day, to announce a change of plans – instead of forcibly marrying of couples or compelling them to tie rachis, they would be good law-abiding boys and merely inform the police about "obscene displays of love in public "!
What a change of heart!
Hurrah for the new digital media – and for Nisha and those have shown us a new method of fighting back! Thank you!!!
Friday, February 13, 2009
Panty-Bombers Put Pub-Bombers in Prison for Valentine’s Day!
The Power of Digital
Panty-Bombers Put Pub-Bombers in Prison for Valentine’s Day!
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=49641698651&ref=mf
http://thepinkchaddicampaign.blogspot.com/
India has just experienced the power of Digital!
Exactly three weeks ago on a Saturday afternoon, Pramod Muthalik and his goons beat up women in a pub having a beer over lunch in Mangalore, in south India. This self-styled leader of the right-wing Hindu Sri Ram Sene (SRS) felt women ought not to go to pubs because it was against “Indian culture”, whatever that means. Muthalik also threatened to go round Mangalore on Valentine’s Day, with Hindu priests and video cameramen in tow, and forcibly marry off unmarried couples celebrating Valentine’s Day.
Three weeks later Muthalik and his ilk are being forced to sit out the day in jail today (Feb 14) so that women in Mangalore can flood the pubs to celebrate their right to love!
Behind that arrest is the story of the power of digital -- how social networking sites like Facebook , word of mouth, print and television have channeled horror, shock and anger at what happened in Mangalore into an imaginative campaign that shamed a reluctant government to act.
And it was all because of the power of click! “Most women in this country have enough curbs on their lives without a whole new franchise cashing in with their bully-boy tactics. Be imaginative, have fun and fight back!” was the message that clicked out and created a novel Gandhian, non-violent protest!
Nisha Susan, a Delhi-based media professional originally from Bangalore, clicked it off on Feb 5. She launched a “Pink Chaddi Campaign” or “Pinky Panty Campaign” of the “Consortium of Pubgoing, Loose and Forward Women” on Facebook. Chaddi is the Indian word for panty. It is also slang in India for right-wing hardliners.
“After the attack on the pub in Mangalore, I felt I had two options. One was to stay quiet and accept everything. The other was to meet these people head-on and make fun of them. So, I started this group on Facebook. The chaddi is also slang for right-wing hardliners and the saffron (right-wing) agenda, while pink stands for things that are frivolous. The combination is offensive.’’
The instructions to the sisterhood were—look in your closet for pink panties or buy them cheap, dirt cheap. Those who could not mail them were asked to drop their packages at “Chaddi Collection Points”. Men were also invited to join in.
The print and television media picked up the story of the “panty-bombers vs the pub bombers” five days later, on February 10. Other social networking sites picked it up. Bloggers and media columnists jumped in and the word chaddi, normally an unmentionable in conservative Indian society, acquired acceptance as the campaign became the buzz of the country.
By 5 pm on Feb 10, over 5,000 had signed up for the campaign on Facebook. By 8 pm, the number had crossed 8,000, by 11 pm it was 11,000 and by Friday night it had crossed 33,000. By Valentine’s Day morning the number was 38,150 and still climbing!
“The content and the form of the movement enthused me. It’ll make a point in a cheeky way. This is a way of taking back the space the guardians of morality are trying to take from us. This movement isn’t just an activist movement, it’s by ordinary women who want to speak up and fight back,” one woman told the Main Stream Media.
Reena Wadhwa, an interior designer in Mumbai, told media she bought a pack of three panties of different shades of pink. Women who do not visit pubs or drink wrote in to say they supported the cause. “It’s absurd how women were harassed in Mangalore. I wanted to take a more proactive stance instead of just being defensive and so I’ve joined the campaign,” said Bishakha Datta, a documentary film-maker.
Manasi Subramanium, a Chennai-based publishing editor and campaign supporter, felt the movement was a contemporary interpretation of old feminist ideas. “This is an old feminist response, akin to bra-burning. I believe in the statement this group is trying to make and I am not at all surprised by the response,” she said.
Women were also exhorted to join the Pub Bharo Andolan (Fill the Pubs Movement on Valentine’s Day). “Join Us on February 14, Valentine’s Day, the day when Indian women’s virginity and honour will self-destruct unless they marry. Walk to the nearest pub and buy a drink. Raise a toast to the SRS.”
What’s interesting is that the Chief Minister of Muthalik’s state, B.S. Yeddyurappa, while disapproving of the violence said he too was against what he called “pub culture” and vowed to stamp it out. His daughter, who runs a BPO in Bangalore, openly opposed him, affirming a woman’s right to visit a pub. He would not relent.
Soon, the Chief Minister of a north Indian state, this time from the centrist Congress Party headed by Ms Sonia Gandhi, also expressed himself against “pub culture”. Others jumped on the bandwagon. Groups of Muthalik’s followers began patrolling college campuses in Mangalore to ensure students respected the gender divide. Others made similar threats in other cities. With weeks to go before national elections, India seemed headed for a clash of cultures, just the sort that the right-wingers desperately need to get back into power.
Two weeks after the pub attack, a Hindu girl talking to a Muslim boy was pulled off a bus in Mangalore along with the youth. Both were thrashed and the girl was made to go down on her knees and promise to behave like a “good Hindu girl” and not go with Muslim boys. Then this week, another Hindu girl seen talking to a Muslim boy was taken to a police station and slapped for jumping the communal divide. Humiliated, she went home and hanged herself.
But last night, exactly three weeks after the pub attack, Mr Yeddyuurappa was forced to arrest Muthalik and his goons and put them behind bars for24 hours so that young couples are able to celebrate their love in peace today.
Hurrah for the new digital media!
Monday, February 02, 2009
Yeddyurappa’s Achilles Heel
Yeddyurappa’s Achilles Heel
When I was a young boy growing up in Bombay as Mumbai was then called, women could not enter restaurants even to have a cup of tea. The only restaurants for the middle-class in Mumbai then were the Irani restaurants and, for some reason, women never entered them. These restaurants had what were called “family rooms” screened by a curtain for women patrons, but these “family rooms” had acquired a sleazy reputation and no decent woman went there, either with family or husband. The result: restaurants were all-male affairs.
It was the Shettys from Mangalore who changed all that in the late ’60s. Through what came to be called “Udupi restaurants”, they brought in a new restaurant culture that enabled even single women to walk in and have a meal without raising an eyebrow. This happened at a time when women began to enter the work force in greater numbers. To them, these restaurants were godsend.
Which is why it is strange then that those who turned the clock forward in Mumbai in the ’60s, should now be turning the clock backward in their own home district of South Kanara or Dakshina Kannada. They have taken it on themselves to beat up and molest women who, they think, should not be seen in pubs. Sadly, the Chief Minister of the State has chosen to support these Huns who ran amok on seeing young women having a meal at a pub on a Saturday afternoon, and perhaps washing it down with a glass of beer.
Their actions are clearly born of desperation. They see themselves as losing control over women and are desperate enough to attempt to stop it by beating up women if necessary. This is an act that requires the least amount of courage anyway, be it done in the home or outside.
Historically, in times of rapid change, it is men who have felt most threatened because women seem to make the transition to change more seamlessly. I had a reporter colleague from Tamil Nadu in the Times in the ’80s who used to boast that he would never allow his wife to wear trousers because they were a male prerogative! He felt no embarrassment about it and was the butt of many a joke at a time when women were beginning to stream into journalism.
I remember as a boy in the 1950s, one of the big controversies in my parish church was whether women should wear sleaveless dresses, tight skirts and lipstick! Parish Bulletins debated the subject and most men felt that women coming to church in any of these should be refused Holy Communion, so that they would be shamed before the whole congregation! Sad, but true! No one bats an eyelid today at women going to church or temples in jeans and T-shirts!
In the 1990s, Muslim women used to have their ears cut off in some small towns of Maharashtra because someone decided that they should not visit cinemas. About the same time, Muslims in the suburb of Jogeshwari in Mumbai hit the headlines because they were advised to throw their TV sets out of their living rooms. Which they did!
In Afghanistan, girls are advised not to go to school. Those who do have acid thrown at them! Different times, different places, same story! And yet, in Mumbai today, it is Muslim girls who are increasingly getting into the merit ranks at the SSC and HSC exams! When the going gets tough, the tough get going!
In the 19 century, the German Emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm II saw women’s role in society as “Kinder, Küche, Kirche”, meaning “children, kitchen, church”. A century later, Hitler adopted this as the foundation of the new society he visualised – women were barred from medicine, the law and civil service and squeezed out of many occupations through bribes or coercions, to meet the needs of the Nazi state with women’ horizons limited to the 3Ks of Children, Kitchen and Church.
The coming of information technology and globalisation in the 1990s has seen more and more women enter the work force and free themselves from economic dependence on men. Which is what has made our cavemen friends in Mangalore desperate enough to beat up women in full view of TV cameras. “Get back to making babies, idlis and being Sati Savitris” is their message.
They will not succeed even with Chief Minister Yeddyurappa’s support! Of that you can rest assured! In any case, the poor man has troubles of his own answering questions about his wife’s death. He has already acknowledged that the case is the “biggest crisis of his life”. So be it! It may well turn out to be his Achilles heel!
When I was a young boy growing up in Bombay as Mumbai was then called, women could not enter restaurants even to have a cup of tea. The only restaurants for the middle-class in Mumbai then were the Irani restaurants and, for some reason, women never entered them. These restaurants had what were called “family rooms” screened by a curtain for women patrons, but these “family rooms” had acquired a sleazy reputation and no decent woman went there, either with family or husband. The result: restaurants were all-male affairs.
It was the Shettys from Mangalore who changed all that in the late ’60s. Through what came to be called “Udupi restaurants”, they brought in a new restaurant culture that enabled even single women to walk in and have a meal without raising an eyebrow. This happened at a time when women began to enter the work force in greater numbers. To them, these restaurants were godsend.
Which is why it is strange then that those who turned the clock forward in Mumbai in the ’60s, should now be turning the clock backward in their own home district of South Kanara or Dakshina Kannada. They have taken it on themselves to beat up and molest women who, they think, should not be seen in pubs. Sadly, the Chief Minister of the State has chosen to support these Huns who ran amok on seeing young women having a meal at a pub on a Saturday afternoon, and perhaps washing it down with a glass of beer.
Their actions are clearly born of desperation. They see themselves as losing control over women and are desperate enough to attempt to stop it by beating up women if necessary. This is an act that requires the least amount of courage anyway, be it done in the home or outside.
Historically, in times of rapid change, it is men who have felt most threatened because women seem to make the transition to change more seamlessly. I had a reporter colleague from Tamil Nadu in the Times in the ’80s who used to boast that he would never allow his wife to wear trousers because they were a male prerogative! He felt no embarrassment about it and was the butt of many a joke at a time when women were beginning to stream into journalism.
I remember as a boy in the 1950s, one of the big controversies in my parish church was whether women should wear sleaveless dresses, tight skirts and lipstick! Parish Bulletins debated the subject and most men felt that women coming to church in any of these should be refused Holy Communion, so that they would be shamed before the whole congregation! Sad, but true! No one bats an eyelid today at women going to church or temples in jeans and T-shirts!
In the 1990s, Muslim women used to have their ears cut off in some small towns of Maharashtra because someone decided that they should not visit cinemas. About the same time, Muslims in the suburb of Jogeshwari in Mumbai hit the headlines because they were advised to throw their TV sets out of their living rooms. Which they did!
In Afghanistan, girls are advised not to go to school. Those who do have acid thrown at them! Different times, different places, same story! And yet, in Mumbai today, it is Muslim girls who are increasingly getting into the merit ranks at the SSC and HSC exams! When the going gets tough, the tough get going!
In the 19 century, the German Emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm II saw women’s role in society as “Kinder, Küche, Kirche”, meaning “children, kitchen, church”. A century later, Hitler adopted this as the foundation of the new society he visualised – women were barred from medicine, the law and civil service and squeezed out of many occupations through bribes or coercions, to meet the needs of the Nazi state with women’ horizons limited to the 3Ks of Children, Kitchen and Church.
The coming of information technology and globalisation in the 1990s has seen more and more women enter the work force and free themselves from economic dependence on men. Which is what has made our cavemen friends in Mangalore desperate enough to beat up women in full view of TV cameras. “Get back to making babies, idlis and being Sati Savitris” is their message.
They will not succeed even with Chief Minister Yeddyurappa’s support! Of that you can rest assured! In any case, the poor man has troubles of his own answering questions about his wife’s death. He has already acknowledged that the case is the “biggest crisis of his life”. So be it! It may well turn out to be his Achilles heel!
Saturday, July 26, 2008
The Irony of Rahul Gandhi's speech in Parliament
I wonder how many of us were struck by the irony of the great grandson of the first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, admitting before Parliament this week that there were still very many homes without a light bulb in this country 61 years after Independence.
The irony is that his father, his grandmother and his great grandfather ruled India for most of those 61 years. To me it was an admission of the failure of the dynasty and the party that has ruled India for six decades to deliver on its promises.
And this is a party whose Prime Minister told the Bucharest conference in 1976 that “development is the best contraceptive”. One of its family planning ministers told Parliament in the ’70s that “when a village is lit up, the birth rate falls.”
The National Electricity Policy (NEP), 2005 recognizes electricity as a “basic human need” and has set a goal of ‘electricity for all by 2012’, with a ‘minimum lifeline consumption of 1 kWh/household/day’. This would mean increasing per capita availability of electricity from 631 units to 1,000 units per annum.
But we are a long, long way from ensuring a light bulb in every home, nuclear energy or no nuclear energy, despite the goal of electricity for all by 2012.
Half the 220 million households in India do not have access to electricity. As of March 2007, the government has been able to provide power to less than a third of the 125,000 targeted villages under the Bharat Nirman – India Renewal – programme.
Electrification of villages does not mean that all rural households will get electricity – a village is declared electrified if 10% or more of households get electricity! Only eight of the 26 states – Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, Maharashtra and Goa, Punjab and Haryana, and Nagaland have achieved 100% electrification as per this definition.
That means 90% of the rural households in these states could still be without electricity. Is it a surprise then that 18% per cent of those in urban areas and 39% of those in rural areas are still illiterate?
Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, told the McKinsey Quarterly (Nov 2007) that India’s performance in power over the past several years is “the weakest”.
But he sought to lay the blame on the states as “most of the critical actions lie in the hands of state governments”. The Central government has now put in place the appropriate legal and regulatory framework to get the states to act But “performance, is lagging behind,” he admitted.
Today’s papers report that the situation is not just alarming, it’s scary even in the IT and financial capitals, Bangalore and Mumbai, respectively.
In Mumbai, unable to cope with outages, the MSEB has increased load shedding in certain industrial areas to a whopping 40 hours at a stretch. Electricity shortfall in Maharashtra has crossed 5,000 MW. Rural areas in Maharashtra have a nightmarish 13-hour power cut a day. Many towns will not have streetlights till 8 p.m. and possibly even beyond.
The political heart of India, Uttar Pradesh, fares no better with a shortage of 2,000MW per day against the demand of 8,500 MW per day. To bridge this gap, bigger towns and cities face up to eight hours of load shedding, district headquarters at least 10 hours and villages a staggering 16 hours.
The booming IT hub of Hyderabad has witnessed its first power cuts in more than 10 years. The government plans a two-day power holiday every week to tide over the crisis! And yet we claim to be a superpower and entertained the nation to two days of debate about whether India should sign the deal with the US on nuclear power or not.
Chinese Premier Chou En-Lai used to say, “What difference does it make if a cat is black or white so long as it catches mice!” Perhaps Mr Prakash Karat and his new found friends in the BJP and the BSP (both are strong believers in caste, each at extreme ends of the caste spectrum!) should go back to reading the speeches of Chou and Mao. ###
The irony is that his father, his grandmother and his great grandfather ruled India for most of those 61 years. To me it was an admission of the failure of the dynasty and the party that has ruled India for six decades to deliver on its promises.
And this is a party whose Prime Minister told the Bucharest conference in 1976 that “development is the best contraceptive”. One of its family planning ministers told Parliament in the ’70s that “when a village is lit up, the birth rate falls.”
The National Electricity Policy (NEP), 2005 recognizes electricity as a “basic human need” and has set a goal of ‘electricity for all by 2012’, with a ‘minimum lifeline consumption of 1 kWh/household/day’. This would mean increasing per capita availability of electricity from 631 units to 1,000 units per annum.
But we are a long, long way from ensuring a light bulb in every home, nuclear energy or no nuclear energy, despite the goal of electricity for all by 2012.
Half the 220 million households in India do not have access to electricity. As of March 2007, the government has been able to provide power to less than a third of the 125,000 targeted villages under the Bharat Nirman – India Renewal – programme.
Electrification of villages does not mean that all rural households will get electricity – a village is declared electrified if 10% or more of households get electricity! Only eight of the 26 states – Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, Maharashtra and Goa, Punjab and Haryana, and Nagaland have achieved 100% electrification as per this definition.
That means 90% of the rural households in these states could still be without electricity. Is it a surprise then that 18% per cent of those in urban areas and 39% of those in rural areas are still illiterate?
Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, told the McKinsey Quarterly (Nov 2007) that India’s performance in power over the past several years is “the weakest”.
But he sought to lay the blame on the states as “most of the critical actions lie in the hands of state governments”. The Central government has now put in place the appropriate legal and regulatory framework to get the states to act But “performance, is lagging behind,” he admitted.
Today’s papers report that the situation is not just alarming, it’s scary even in the IT and financial capitals, Bangalore and Mumbai, respectively.
In Mumbai, unable to cope with outages, the MSEB has increased load shedding in certain industrial areas to a whopping 40 hours at a stretch. Electricity shortfall in Maharashtra has crossed 5,000 MW. Rural areas in Maharashtra have a nightmarish 13-hour power cut a day. Many towns will not have streetlights till 8 p.m. and possibly even beyond.
The political heart of India, Uttar Pradesh, fares no better with a shortage of 2,000MW per day against the demand of 8,500 MW per day. To bridge this gap, bigger towns and cities face up to eight hours of load shedding, district headquarters at least 10 hours and villages a staggering 16 hours.
The booming IT hub of Hyderabad has witnessed its first power cuts in more than 10 years. The government plans a two-day power holiday every week to tide over the crisis! And yet we claim to be a superpower and entertained the nation to two days of debate about whether India should sign the deal with the US on nuclear power or not.
Chinese Premier Chou En-Lai used to say, “What difference does it make if a cat is black or white so long as it catches mice!” Perhaps Mr Prakash Karat and his new found friends in the BJP and the BSP (both are strong believers in caste, each at extreme ends of the caste spectrum!) should go back to reading the speeches of Chou and Mao. ###
Christmas or Easter are not festivals of noise
I am glad that the Bombay High Court has sought a report from the Maharashtra Home Secretary about noise pollution in Mumbai and compliance with the noise control regulations in force.
It has given me a chance to take up with the Home Secretary my efforts for the last eight years – yes, eight years! – to get my parish church to stop firing crackers at night after the 10 p.m. curfew in “celebration” after the Christmas Eve and Easter vigil services.
Non-religious music has also been played on the loudspeaker system used for the church services held in the open air on both occasions. This is a clear abuse of the extension beyond 10 p.m. deadline given purely for purposes of the religious services being audible to the open-air congregation.
I have made every effort to get the priests in my parish – mostly rural boys from the south who do not understand the situation in Mumbai or their own parishioners and don’t want to learn either! – that this is not done if they are true followers of the man who said, “Do unto others as they do unto you!”
I wrote to the Archbishop of Bombay, Cardinal Ossie Gracias, who agreed with me that this should stop and asked his local bishop, Percival Fernandes to take up the matter. The only thing that has happened is that instead of the crackers being fired from the terrace of the church, they are now fired from the periphery to make it seem that the church has nothing to do with them.
But the timing of the firing of crackers, in synchronization with key prayers during the service or when the priests are leaving the altar, is a clear indication that this is being done with the connivance of the priests.
If the priests do not connive with the perpetrators of this unwarranted noise pollution, the Parish Priest, Claudy Vaz, should have been the first to complain to the local police about the violation of the law laid down by the Supreme Court of India. He hasn’t!
Worse, when I went to the parish office to persuade him to show consideration for the old and the young, for those who might be sleeping after ten, I was advised by the assistant parish priest, Anto Vijayan, a smart but immature young man too full of himself, to first stop people in wedding processions firing crackers on the road.
I thought Christians who consider themselves several levels superior to others – and especially Christian preachers like Anto who preach about environmental pollution – set their own benchmark.
I then went to the police who do not seem to be interested in enforcing the law either! As one of them told me, “these are sensitive matters because these are matters of dharma.” I would think this is a matter of adharma because the firing of crackers is not a part of Christian religious rituals either during the day or night!
I thought it was the job of the police to enforce the law regardless of dharma or adharma, and regardless of the dharma of the complainant or the violator. But that is not so. But that does not deter me. I have fought several battles over several decades in a 39-year-long journalistic career and this one is far from over!
I am now looking forward to the Bombay High Court taking up the matter and cracking the police as well as my parish priests on the knuckles for making a mockery of Silent Night, Holy Night, or the solemn Easter Vigil with their misconceived idea of “celebration”.
Watch this space!
It has given me a chance to take up with the Home Secretary my efforts for the last eight years – yes, eight years! – to get my parish church to stop firing crackers at night after the 10 p.m. curfew in “celebration” after the Christmas Eve and Easter vigil services.
Non-religious music has also been played on the loudspeaker system used for the church services held in the open air on both occasions. This is a clear abuse of the extension beyond 10 p.m. deadline given purely for purposes of the religious services being audible to the open-air congregation.
I have made every effort to get the priests in my parish – mostly rural boys from the south who do not understand the situation in Mumbai or their own parishioners and don’t want to learn either! – that this is not done if they are true followers of the man who said, “Do unto others as they do unto you!”
I wrote to the Archbishop of Bombay, Cardinal Ossie Gracias, who agreed with me that this should stop and asked his local bishop, Percival Fernandes to take up the matter. The only thing that has happened is that instead of the crackers being fired from the terrace of the church, they are now fired from the periphery to make it seem that the church has nothing to do with them.
But the timing of the firing of crackers, in synchronization with key prayers during the service or when the priests are leaving the altar, is a clear indication that this is being done with the connivance of the priests.
If the priests do not connive with the perpetrators of this unwarranted noise pollution, the Parish Priest, Claudy Vaz, should have been the first to complain to the local police about the violation of the law laid down by the Supreme Court of India. He hasn’t!
Worse, when I went to the parish office to persuade him to show consideration for the old and the young, for those who might be sleeping after ten, I was advised by the assistant parish priest, Anto Vijayan, a smart but immature young man too full of himself, to first stop people in wedding processions firing crackers on the road.
I thought Christians who consider themselves several levels superior to others – and especially Christian preachers like Anto who preach about environmental pollution – set their own benchmark.
I then went to the police who do not seem to be interested in enforcing the law either! As one of them told me, “these are sensitive matters because these are matters of dharma.” I would think this is a matter of adharma because the firing of crackers is not a part of Christian religious rituals either during the day or night!
I thought it was the job of the police to enforce the law regardless of dharma or adharma, and regardless of the dharma of the complainant or the violator. But that is not so. But that does not deter me. I have fought several battles over several decades in a 39-year-long journalistic career and this one is far from over!
I am now looking forward to the Bombay High Court taking up the matter and cracking the police as well as my parish priests on the knuckles for making a mockery of Silent Night, Holy Night, or the solemn Easter Vigil with their misconceived idea of “celebration”.
Watch this space!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)