Press Trust Of India
Melbourne, May 29, 2011
Astrophysicists have for long been baffled with the universe's "missing mass" puzzle -- one of the major mysteries of science. Now, an Australian student claims to have finally cracked the scientific conundrum. Physicists knew that universe contained more mass than was visible in planets, stars and other objects -- but didn't know where to find it or how to prove it. They estimated that about half the mass required to keep the universe functioning as it does was "missing".
Now, 22-year-old Amelia Fraser-McKelvie, an aerospace engineering student at Monash University, has discovered the missing material after spending a holiday internship with a team of researchers at the varsity's School of Physics.
The student conducted a targeted X-ray search of vast structures known as "filaments of galaxies", which stretch across the vast expanse of space. Examining data the research team had already gathered, her analysis of material confirmed that mass was present in the filaments.
"If we're looking very, very long distances from Earth we're detecting mass, but if we're looking closer to Earth we only see about half the mass that we're expecting to see. This is what is called the missing mass problem.
"People have theorised that this mass has settled in filaments that extend between clusters of galaxies, so we tested and confirmed this prediction by detecting it in the filaments," the Australian media quoted Amelia as saying.
Monash astrophysicist Dr Kevin Pimbblet explained that scientists had previously detected matter that had been present in the early history of the universe but that could not now be located.
He added that physicists had known about the missing mass for the past two decades, but the technology needed to pinpoint its location was only made available in recent years.
"We don't know where it went. Now we do know where it went because that's what Amelia found," he said, adding that the discovery could drive the construction of new telescopes designed to specifically study the mass.
The findings have been published in 'Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society'.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Lokpal Bill: Centre' takes a cunning but risky step
Faced with a possible deadloak in Lokpal Bill drafting negotiations and another unto-death hunger threat, this time from Baba Ramdev, Centre today wrots to the CMs and political parties seeking their views on Lokpal Bill.
The question that may soon have to be answered: Why only the CMs and the political parties? It could well invite suggestions directly from citizens of the country!
Here is the HT report:
Centre writes to CMs, parties seeking views on Lokpal
Seeking to widen consultations, the Centre on Tuesday wrote to all chief ministers and leaders of political parties eliciting their views on issues including whether to bring the Prime Minister under Lokpal. A day after civil society activists on the Joint Drafting Committee on the Bill threatened to take to streets, home minister P Chidambaram and HRD minister Kapil Sibal addressed a press conference to make it clear that the government was committed to bringing a Bill in the Monsoon session of Parliament.
The government is also trying to avert a situation like the one that evolved during the indefinite fast by Anna Hazare last month with finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and top ministry officials talking to Baba Ramdev to persuade him not to go ahead with his proposed indefinite fast from June 4.
Mukherjee, who is also the chairman of the Joint Draft Committee, on Tuesday wrote a letter to the the chief ministers and leaders of political parties representatives in Parliament to give their views on six issues.
These include the demand of civil society members that one single Act should provide for both the Lokpal in the Centre and Lokayukta in the state and whether their governments would be willing to accept a draft provision for the Lokayukta on the same lines as that of the Lokpal.
Answer has also been sought on whether Prime Minister should also be brought under the purview of the Lokpal and if so, should there be a qualified inclusion and should judges of Supreme Court and hgh courts also be covered by the proposed law.
Link: http://www.hindustantimes.com/Centre-writes-to-CMs-parties-seeking-views-on-Lokpal/H1-Article1-704139.aspx
The question that may soon have to be answered: Why only the CMs and the political parties? It could well invite suggestions directly from citizens of the country!
Here is the HT report:
Centre writes to CMs, parties seeking views on Lokpal
Seeking to widen consultations, the Centre on Tuesday wrote to all chief ministers and leaders of political parties eliciting their views on issues including whether to bring the Prime Minister under Lokpal. A day after civil society activists on the Joint Drafting Committee on the Bill threatened to take to streets, home minister P Chidambaram and HRD minister Kapil Sibal addressed a press conference to make it clear that the government was committed to bringing a Bill in the Monsoon session of Parliament.
The government is also trying to avert a situation like the one that evolved during the indefinite fast by Anna Hazare last month with finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and top ministry officials talking to Baba Ramdev to persuade him not to go ahead with his proposed indefinite fast from June 4.
Mukherjee, who is also the chairman of the Joint Draft Committee, on Tuesday wrote a letter to the the chief ministers and leaders of political parties representatives in Parliament to give their views on six issues.
These include the demand of civil society members that one single Act should provide for both the Lokpal in the Centre and Lokayukta in the state and whether their governments would be willing to accept a draft provision for the Lokayukta on the same lines as that of the Lokpal.
Answer has also been sought on whether Prime Minister should also be brought under the purview of the Lokpal and if so, should there be a qualified inclusion and should judges of Supreme Court and hgh courts also be covered by the proposed law.
Link: http://www.hindustantimes.com/Centre-writes-to-CMs-parties-seeking-views-on-Lokpal/H1-Article1-704139.aspx
Friday, May 27, 2011
Who let Davy escape? CBI to zero in on 'politician'
The CBI wishes to write "the last chapter" of the Purulia arms drop case as the agency wants to know the name of a politician, if any, who had helped the main accused Kim Davy escape from Mumbai airport. Source in the agency said the CBI is ready to probe the mysterious escape of Purulia arms drop case accused Kim Davy with the alleged help of a politician from Mumbai airport, if he gives details about him during his trial before Indian courts after his extradition from Denmark.
Sources in the agency said the "last chapter of this mystery will be written by Davy himself" as the CBI so far has not found involvement of any politician in the Purulia arms drop "conspiracy".
"The details about the escape can only be provided by Kim Davy. Let him come to India and say in the court whatever he is claiming through media interviews. Once he gives his statement in the court, we are ready to probe in every possible lead provided by him," a senior official of the agency said.
Davy, in a media interview, had alleged an MP from Bihar had helped him escape from the country to Denmark after his infamous air-dropping operation of sophisticated weapons in Purulia in West Bengal on the night of December 17, 1995.
A CBI team has recently returned from Denmark where a five-judge bench of the Danish High Court, first to be constituted since 1957, concluded hearing extradition case of Davy. The bench is likely to pronounce its decision in the case before the start of their summer vacations which begin some time in July.
Jan Lokpal Bill will have tooth to send corrupt to jail: Anna Hazare
TOI link PTI news 26 May 2011
AHMEDABAD: Social activist Anna Hazare exuded confidence that the Jan Lokpal Bill will have 'enough tooth' to send the corrupt in jail.
"The multi-crore scams like Adarsh, CWG are surfacing ... but scamsters are not being sent to jail. For sending such scamsters to jail there will be this Jan Lokpal Bill," Hazare said at an event.
"In the last 62 years, no law has been enacted in the country to put brakes on corruption, which is not good in a law-driven democratic country like India," he said.
The government was saying why do we need people (civil society) from outside for drafting the bill, I told them they are not outsiders, Hazare said adding that people in democracy are politicians' boss as they vote them to power.
On January 26, 1950, a day when India became sovereign republic, people of the country turned your bosses, Hazare said.
"When I spoke like this the government went silent," Hazare said.
"I mean to say that in a democratic set up it is necessary to take civil society with you if the nation has to make progress, he said.
If a law is to be enacted then the public must be consulted on it, like we are doing, Hazare said adding that an effective legislation like the RTI Act came into existence in a similar fashion.
Swami Agnivesh, while sharing dais with Hazare said that the Jan Lokpal bill draft is likely to get finalised before June 30.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Osama’s Yemeni wife led US to Abbottabad? PTI | May 23, 2011, 01.16am IST
LONDON: Pakistan interior minister Rehman Malik believes US had a mole right inside Osama bin Laden's Abbottabad hideout and this was how the al-Qaida chief was tracked down, a media report said on Sunday.
Top US officials said after the raid that they were only partially certain of Osama's presence inside the $1 million mansion, but Malik says only definitive information could have led them right to the room where bin Laden was killed, according to a report in The Sunday Times. The report also says that bin Laden's Saudi wives believe it was his younger Yemeni wife Amal who betrayed him.
"In my experience of years as an intelligence officer, I think someone from inside may have given information," said Malik. "If the Americans didn't have definitive information, they couldn't have gone straight to the room where bin Laden was," he was quoted as saying by the paper.
A pocket guide carried by the US Navy Seals who killed Osama, suggests "bin Laden had fathered twins in captivity" referring to the unidentified children born this year to his youngest wife Amal, 28.
The document, left behind in the compound, lists the names and ages of those who were present, including bin Laden's wives, children and grandchildren. It also details where they lived in the compound and when they arrived.
According to the report, after the mission Obama said he had been "only 45% to 55% sure that bin Laden was even in the compound". The document, which is believed to have been carried by all the Seals on the mission, however, indicates that US intelligence was certain of his presence.
Some Pakistani officials, including Malik, believe the briefing points to the presence of a mole in the compound. The two elder Saudi wives of bin Laden have accused Amal of betraying bin Laden, either by supplying information or by allowing herself to be tracked to the compound.
There have been reports of visits to the compound by donors and a Taliban commander. The other possibility is that US drone technology is far more sophisticated.
Documents also reveal for the first time that the two courier brothers moved to Abbottabad in 2006 from Mardan where Abu Faraj al-Libbi, the al-Qaida No 3, was captured in May 2005. According to Guantanamo detainee assessment published by WikiLeaks, he was caught while waiting for a courier. He had earlier been living in Abbottabad.
According to the report, an employee at Abbottabad Post Office was tracked after he received suspiciously large cash transfers and he led investigators to Umar Patek, one of the Bali bombers, arrested in Abbottabad in January. All these arrests in the same area seem more than coincidence, it said.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Gwangju Prize: Acceptance speech of Dr Sen
Posted: 18 May 2011 01:13 AM PDT
Dr Binayak Sen
I am greatly honored to be chosen as the 2011 recipient of the prestigious Gwangju Prize for Human Rights. It is indeed an honor not just for me but also the countless other human rights workers struggling to establish justice, peace and equity all over India, including Chhattisgarh where I live and work. Let me begin by thanking all those who have taken the time to advocate about me and on behalf of me, and then take this opportunity to speak for myself and in my own words.
I would like to thank the people of South Korea and in particular the citizens of Gwangju whose historic struggles have made freedom, democracy and justice core values of their society. The martyrs of Gwangju will remain an inspiration to people all over Asia as we struggle to make the world a better place.
First, I shall try to briefly clear up some possible misconceptions about myself. I did not violate any laws and never was disloyal to the people of my country. I condemn, unequivocally, all violence by any and all individuals and agencies. I believe that violence is an invalid and unsustainable approach to achieving goals, whether these are the goals of the state or the goals of individuals operating outside the law. Because the state is sworn to uphold the Constitution, I believe we are entitled hold agents of the state to a higher standard than we hold outlaws. As members and office-bearers of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, it is the responsibility of my colleagues and myself to help hold the state accountable to the promises of the Indian Constitution.
But the state does not only consist of the government or its agencies. As a society, we are all part of the state, and there would be no state without us. We often tend to think of violence only in terms of the use of weapons and explosives against others. However, there is another form of violence in society, which is structural in nature, which I believe is even more pervasive and pernicious than guns and bombs, because it is all around us and we have stopped noticing it. It is this other form of violence that concerns me as a paediatrician and public health physician.
I would like to begin my speech here today by first telling you very briefly about myself and my work but follow this up with my perspectives on what is happening in my home country India, which is home to over one-sixth of all humanity on this planet. I will also try to deal with the global context which is affecting the health and human rights situation in India.
It was nearly four decades ago that I, as a pediatrician trained at the Christian Medical College, Vellore in southern India after a brief stint at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi decided to go and work in Chhattisgarh. My graduate thesis at CMC had focused on severe malnutrition in children and the theme of nutrition and its interface with health and well being has been a life-long area of concern for me.
Chhattisgarh, a province in central India that till ten years ago used to be part of the larger province of Madhya Pradesh, was created in 2000 as a separate state ostensibly to benefit the large population of indigenous people or ‘adivasis’ there.
However, Chhattisgarh is also the most mineral rich state in the country and iron-ore, limestone, dolomite, coal, bauxite are found in abundance. The province also produces 20% of the India’s steel and cement and is also a major centre of thermal power production. Much of the mineral resource lies below adivasi lands. Yet throughout India a as well as in Chhattisgarh, the adivasis are a much-neglected group, long deprived of such basics as nutritional security, health care and education, who are now also suffering displacement from their natural habitat and their traditional livelihood resources as politically favoured commercial interests seek to exploit the state’s vast mineral wealth in their lands.
When we first arrived here my wife Dr Ilina Sen(who is a sociologist with a special interest in gender studies) and I, decided to work with the Chhattisgarh Mines Shramik Sangh (CMSS)which was a unique trade union movement among mining and steel plant workers led by the legendary Shankar Guha Niyogi. Under Niyogi’s leadership, the mine workers’ organization led a militant struggle for the rights of indigenous, contractual mine workers, and combined this with a strong commitment to social initiatives that were anchored in the strength of the people. The idea of basing health outreach programmes on the strength of community based health workers was born here.
In the mid-eighties we moved to the capital city of Raipur and founded Rupantar, a community-based non-governmental organization (NGO) that aimed at an integrated approach to health care and human rights, including women’s rights and food security. Using this platform we contributed to the mainstreaming of health worker based community health programmes that has now been adopted nationally in India. However, my health work in Chhattisgarh for the last 30 years has demonstrated to me again and again that there is a clear relationship to peoples’ nutrition, social , economic and political well being and the state of their health. Health can never exist is isolation and without a broader concept of entitlements.
My participation in human rights work started with my joining the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), a long-established and respected Indian human rights organization established by the late Jai Prakash Narayan during the dark days of the Emergency when the liberty of speech and expression ordinary citizens stood suspended. When the new state of Chhattisgarh was formed, I became the secretary of the PUCL in Chhattisgarh and in the course of time, its National Vice-President. A lot of my human rights work consisted of highlighting the deprivations of the tribal communities and exposing instances of state insensitivity as well as police atrocities against them.
This was a period when the government of Chhattisgarh was engaged in a major project of land acquisition and mega development that deprived the adivasis of their access to common property resources in land, water and forest, as well as existing livelihood options. State action in the forested parts of the province, ostensibly against the Maoists, severely compromised normal life, with repressive laws, police brutality, and the sponsorship of a vicious civilian militia or vigilante group called the Salwa Judum. On behalf of the PUCL, my colleagues and I organised objective enquiries into the atrocities of this militia. We also led enquiries into so called “encounter killings”, by which security agencies sometimes secretly liquidate suspected militants. One such enquiry ultimately led to registration of criminal cases and issuing of arrest warrants against eight erring police officers, much to the discomfort of the state police.
The PUCL has also strongly criticized over the years the forced displacement of the adivasis without proper rehabilitation and without sharing with them the fruits of economic development which is mainly based on exploitation of mineral wealth located in their natural habitat.
Almost certainly because of my growing involvement in human rights work and exposure of state atrocities on indigenous populations on 14 May 2007, I was detained for allegedly supporting the outlawed Maoists, thereby violating the provisions of the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act 2005 (CSPSA) and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act 1967, and for indulgence in seditious activity.
On 24 December 2010 a lower court in Raipur sentenced me along with two others to rigorous life imprisonment for ‘sedition’, under an outdated colonial-era law that was formulated by our Imperial masters in the nineteenth century , and used for long against fighters for India’s freedom from British rule.
Today, as I stand before you here in Gwangju I have been freed on bail by the Supreme Court of India which in a hearing on 15 April has said clearly that the law on sedition has been wrongly applied in my case and there is no evidence at all for such a charge. My appeal to overturn the conviction and sentence of life imprisonment continues at the Chhattisgarh High Court and I am determined to fight the case till it is finally established that my actions were always in the interest of justice with equity, and were never seditious in nature.
What I have said so far about Chhattisgarh, applies today to all of India. India, the country I belong to, is an ancient and great nation. It is a land of stupendous diversity of people, cultures, languages and ethnicities. It is a land that gave rise to at least four major religions of the world Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism and to numerous great philosophers, mathematicians, physicians and social revolutionaries.
Today, India is considered around the world as a rapidly developing country posting economic growth rates of around 8-9 percent consistently over the last several years. Along with China, which is much further ahead, India is seen as a powerhouse of the global economy in the decades to come and already it is home to a very large number of dollar billionaires, perhaps the largest such number in Asia.
In our own times as we look around this vast and populated country though the picture that one sees is not as rosy as it is made out to be. India is also home to the world’s largest number of people living in absolute poverty. In 2007 a study on the unorganized sector in India, based on government data for the period between 1993-94 and 2004-05, found that an overwhelming 836 million people in India live on a per capita consumption of less than Rs 20 or O.50 US cents a day. [1]
In 2010 a UNDP/Oxford University study, using a new Multi-dimensional Poverty Index (MPI), said that eight Indian provinces alone have more poor than 26 African nations put together.The report said that acute poverty prevails in Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal which together account for 421 million people, 11 million more “MPI poor” than in the 26 poorest African countries.
As a physician and a pediatrician in particular what concerns me is that such absolute poverty among such large numbers of people really translates into a major health disaster the proportions of which can only be called genocidal. I have a specific technical reason for using the word genocide and do not wield it in a rhetorical manner.
The Indian National Nutrition Monitoring Bureau (NNMB) tells us that over 33% of the adult population of India has a Body Mass Index of less than 18.5, and can be considered as suffering from chronic under nutrition. If we disaggregate the data, we find that over 50% of the scheduled tribes (Adivasis), and over 60% of the scheduled castes (dalits) have a BMI below 18.5.
The WHO says that any community with more than 40% of its members with a BMI below 18.5 may be regarded as being in a state of famine. By this criterion there are various subsets of the population of India-the scheduled tribes, scheduled castes, – which may be regarded as being permanently in a state of famine.
So it is not any general population that is suffering the consequences of poverty-induced malnutrition but specific ethnic groups and hence my use of the term ‘genocide’ as per the United Nations definition. All this is, of course, in addition to the mundane reality, to which we have become inured, of 43% of children under 5 in India being malnourished by weight for age criteria. has the world’s largest number of malnourished children and according to the UNICEF over 2 million Indian children die every year due to malnutrition related diseases.
I want to bring to your and indeed the attention of the world that it is precisely this section of the population, that is stricken by famine, that is today the principal target of a widespread policy of expropriation of natural and common property resources, in a concerted and often militarized programme run by the Indian state.
For a long time, despite their cash poverty, the Adivasis of central India, living in extreme poverty, nevertheless survived through their access to common property resources- the forests, the rivers, and land- all of which are now under a renewed threat of sequestration and privatization as global finance capital embarks on its latest phase of expansion. The doctrine of eminent domain vests ultimate ownership of all land and natural resources in the state. Under cover of eminent domain, vast tracts of land, forest and water reserves are being handed over to the Indian affiliates of international finance capital.
Land acquired from ordinary people in Chhattisgarh, as also in other parts of India, has been handed over to the industrial houses for the purpose of mining or building large steel and power plants. With a few honourable exceptions, the personnel articulating the agency of state power have almost uniformly possessed a colonial mindset. It is not as if the people have not resisted. The forced takeover of indigenous land is being met with resistance that is multi hued , yet the state has chosen to brand it under the single category of Maoist, and has met it with brutality and human rights violations. The social fabric in many of these regions is today polarized beyond immediate rectification, and the deep fissures in our society will take time to heal
Ladies and Gentlemen, on this solemn occasion, I would like to make an appeal to all of you. In the times we live while oppression is most acutely manifested in remote and local places like Bastar district of Chhattisgarh the truth is that the forces behind such oppression are often global in nature. It is well recognized now that the tsunami-like flow of capital around the world is a source of tremendous tragedy for many communities around the world which do not fit into the ideologically straitjacketed confines of the ‘market economy’.
Countries like South Korea that have suffered the ravages of colonialism in the past and risen from the ashes of the Second World War to become industrially and economically leading nations of the world have a special responsibility today. It is the responsibility of ensuring that they do not do the kind of violence and exploitation to the people of the Third World what they themselves were subjected to in the past by others.
I want to bring up the specific case of the South Korean steel giant POSCO which has embarked on a USD 12 billion dollar project in the Indian state of Orissa, which at USD 12 billion to mine iron ore, build a port and a mega-steel plant.
Indian activists have pointed out repeatedly that from a national point of view the MoU signed by the Orissa government with POSCO to give it the rights to mine over 600 million tonnes of high grade iron or is a scam of immense proportions. According to the original MoU, the royalty that POSCO will pay for the iron ore is around Rs. 24 per tonne whereas the selling price in the international market is around Rs. 5000 today. Besides all this POSCO and its investors from around the world are to be illegally given nearly 5000 acres of land that was originally forest land and cannot be used for any other purpose under Indian law without the consent of forest dwelling people.
For more than five years now the POSCO Pratirodh Sangram Samity (PPSS), a local people’s movement in Jagatsingpur district, has been bravely resisting the POSCO project which threatens the livelihood of thousands of agriculturists, workers and small businesses in the area besides devastating the local environment and ecology. Over 30,000 people, mostly farmers and fisherfolk are expected to be displaced.
Even as we speak here today large contingents of the Orissa police are moving into the villages settled on the targeted land for the POSCO project to uproot local communities using brute force. I would like to appeal to the South Korean people and the people of Gwangju in particular to strongly oppose the POSCO project in solidarity with the brave farmers and fishermen of Jagatsingpur. POSCO should withdraw its investment in this project immediately and an inquiry launched in both South Korea and India into the circumstances under which such a project was considered and cleared.
The spirit of the Gwangju Prize for Human Rights calls upon all of us to continue to oppose violations of human rights in every form, wherever it occurs and whatsoever the costs of such opposition. We remain committed to Peace, but realize that there cannot be any peace without equity and social justice. I am confident that my appeal to you will be heard and responded to and the solidarity of the South Korean people will forever remain with the oppressed people of India and other parts of Asia and the world.
Thank you
Dr Binayak Sen
I am greatly honored to be chosen as the 2011 recipient of the prestigious Gwangju Prize for Human Rights. It is indeed an honor not just for me but also the countless other human rights workers struggling to establish justice, peace and equity all over India, including Chhattisgarh where I live and work. Let me begin by thanking all those who have taken the time to advocate about me and on behalf of me, and then take this opportunity to speak for myself and in my own words.
I would like to thank the people of South Korea and in particular the citizens of Gwangju whose historic struggles have made freedom, democracy and justice core values of their society. The martyrs of Gwangju will remain an inspiration to people all over Asia as we struggle to make the world a better place.
First, I shall try to briefly clear up some possible misconceptions about myself. I did not violate any laws and never was disloyal to the people of my country. I condemn, unequivocally, all violence by any and all individuals and agencies. I believe that violence is an invalid and unsustainable approach to achieving goals, whether these are the goals of the state or the goals of individuals operating outside the law. Because the state is sworn to uphold the Constitution, I believe we are entitled hold agents of the state to a higher standard than we hold outlaws. As members and office-bearers of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, it is the responsibility of my colleagues and myself to help hold the state accountable to the promises of the Indian Constitution.
But the state does not only consist of the government or its agencies. As a society, we are all part of the state, and there would be no state without us. We often tend to think of violence only in terms of the use of weapons and explosives against others. However, there is another form of violence in society, which is structural in nature, which I believe is even more pervasive and pernicious than guns and bombs, because it is all around us and we have stopped noticing it. It is this other form of violence that concerns me as a paediatrician and public health physician.
I would like to begin my speech here today by first telling you very briefly about myself and my work but follow this up with my perspectives on what is happening in my home country India, which is home to over one-sixth of all humanity on this planet. I will also try to deal with the global context which is affecting the health and human rights situation in India.
It was nearly four decades ago that I, as a pediatrician trained at the Christian Medical College, Vellore in southern India after a brief stint at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi decided to go and work in Chhattisgarh. My graduate thesis at CMC had focused on severe malnutrition in children and the theme of nutrition and its interface with health and well being has been a life-long area of concern for me.
Chhattisgarh, a province in central India that till ten years ago used to be part of the larger province of Madhya Pradesh, was created in 2000 as a separate state ostensibly to benefit the large population of indigenous people or ‘adivasis’ there.
However, Chhattisgarh is also the most mineral rich state in the country and iron-ore, limestone, dolomite, coal, bauxite are found in abundance. The province also produces 20% of the India’s steel and cement and is also a major centre of thermal power production. Much of the mineral resource lies below adivasi lands. Yet throughout India a as well as in Chhattisgarh, the adivasis are a much-neglected group, long deprived of such basics as nutritional security, health care and education, who are now also suffering displacement from their natural habitat and their traditional livelihood resources as politically favoured commercial interests seek to exploit the state’s vast mineral wealth in their lands.
When we first arrived here my wife Dr Ilina Sen(who is a sociologist with a special interest in gender studies) and I, decided to work with the Chhattisgarh Mines Shramik Sangh (CMSS)which was a unique trade union movement among mining and steel plant workers led by the legendary Shankar Guha Niyogi. Under Niyogi’s leadership, the mine workers’ organization led a militant struggle for the rights of indigenous, contractual mine workers, and combined this with a strong commitment to social initiatives that were anchored in the strength of the people. The idea of basing health outreach programmes on the strength of community based health workers was born here.
In the mid-eighties we moved to the capital city of Raipur and founded Rupantar, a community-based non-governmental organization (NGO) that aimed at an integrated approach to health care and human rights, including women’s rights and food security. Using this platform we contributed to the mainstreaming of health worker based community health programmes that has now been adopted nationally in India. However, my health work in Chhattisgarh for the last 30 years has demonstrated to me again and again that there is a clear relationship to peoples’ nutrition, social , economic and political well being and the state of their health. Health can never exist is isolation and without a broader concept of entitlements.
My participation in human rights work started with my joining the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), a long-established and respected Indian human rights organization established by the late Jai Prakash Narayan during the dark days of the Emergency when the liberty of speech and expression ordinary citizens stood suspended. When the new state of Chhattisgarh was formed, I became the secretary of the PUCL in Chhattisgarh and in the course of time, its National Vice-President. A lot of my human rights work consisted of highlighting the deprivations of the tribal communities and exposing instances of state insensitivity as well as police atrocities against them.
This was a period when the government of Chhattisgarh was engaged in a major project of land acquisition and mega development that deprived the adivasis of their access to common property resources in land, water and forest, as well as existing livelihood options. State action in the forested parts of the province, ostensibly against the Maoists, severely compromised normal life, with repressive laws, police brutality, and the sponsorship of a vicious civilian militia or vigilante group called the Salwa Judum. On behalf of the PUCL, my colleagues and I organised objective enquiries into the atrocities of this militia. We also led enquiries into so called “encounter killings”, by which security agencies sometimes secretly liquidate suspected militants. One such enquiry ultimately led to registration of criminal cases and issuing of arrest warrants against eight erring police officers, much to the discomfort of the state police.
The PUCL has also strongly criticized over the years the forced displacement of the adivasis without proper rehabilitation and without sharing with them the fruits of economic development which is mainly based on exploitation of mineral wealth located in their natural habitat.
Almost certainly because of my growing involvement in human rights work and exposure of state atrocities on indigenous populations on 14 May 2007, I was detained for allegedly supporting the outlawed Maoists, thereby violating the provisions of the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act 2005 (CSPSA) and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act 1967, and for indulgence in seditious activity.
On 24 December 2010 a lower court in Raipur sentenced me along with two others to rigorous life imprisonment for ‘sedition’, under an outdated colonial-era law that was formulated by our Imperial masters in the nineteenth century , and used for long against fighters for India’s freedom from British rule.
Today, as I stand before you here in Gwangju I have been freed on bail by the Supreme Court of India which in a hearing on 15 April has said clearly that the law on sedition has been wrongly applied in my case and there is no evidence at all for such a charge. My appeal to overturn the conviction and sentence of life imprisonment continues at the Chhattisgarh High Court and I am determined to fight the case till it is finally established that my actions were always in the interest of justice with equity, and were never seditious in nature.
What I have said so far about Chhattisgarh, applies today to all of India. India, the country I belong to, is an ancient and great nation. It is a land of stupendous diversity of people, cultures, languages and ethnicities. It is a land that gave rise to at least four major religions of the world Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism and to numerous great philosophers, mathematicians, physicians and social revolutionaries.
Today, India is considered around the world as a rapidly developing country posting economic growth rates of around 8-9 percent consistently over the last several years. Along with China, which is much further ahead, India is seen as a powerhouse of the global economy in the decades to come and already it is home to a very large number of dollar billionaires, perhaps the largest such number in Asia.
In our own times as we look around this vast and populated country though the picture that one sees is not as rosy as it is made out to be. India is also home to the world’s largest number of people living in absolute poverty. In 2007 a study on the unorganized sector in India, based on government data for the period between 1993-94 and 2004-05, found that an overwhelming 836 million people in India live on a per capita consumption of less than Rs 20 or O.50 US cents a day. [1]
In 2010 a UNDP/Oxford University study, using a new Multi-dimensional Poverty Index (MPI), said that eight Indian provinces alone have more poor than 26 African nations put together.The report said that acute poverty prevails in Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal which together account for 421 million people, 11 million more “MPI poor” than in the 26 poorest African countries.
As a physician and a pediatrician in particular what concerns me is that such absolute poverty among such large numbers of people really translates into a major health disaster the proportions of which can only be called genocidal. I have a specific technical reason for using the word genocide and do not wield it in a rhetorical manner.
The Indian National Nutrition Monitoring Bureau (NNMB) tells us that over 33% of the adult population of India has a Body Mass Index of less than 18.5, and can be considered as suffering from chronic under nutrition. If we disaggregate the data, we find that over 50% of the scheduled tribes (Adivasis), and over 60% of the scheduled castes (dalits) have a BMI below 18.5.
The WHO says that any community with more than 40% of its members with a BMI below 18.5 may be regarded as being in a state of famine. By this criterion there are various subsets of the population of India-the scheduled tribes, scheduled castes, – which may be regarded as being permanently in a state of famine.
So it is not any general population that is suffering the consequences of poverty-induced malnutrition but specific ethnic groups and hence my use of the term ‘genocide’ as per the United Nations definition. All this is, of course, in addition to the mundane reality, to which we have become inured, of 43% of children under 5 in India being malnourished by weight for age criteria. has the world’s largest number of malnourished children and according to the UNICEF over 2 million Indian children die every year due to malnutrition related diseases.
I want to bring to your and indeed the attention of the world that it is precisely this section of the population, that is stricken by famine, that is today the principal target of a widespread policy of expropriation of natural and common property resources, in a concerted and often militarized programme run by the Indian state.
For a long time, despite their cash poverty, the Adivasis of central India, living in extreme poverty, nevertheless survived through their access to common property resources- the forests, the rivers, and land- all of which are now under a renewed threat of sequestration and privatization as global finance capital embarks on its latest phase of expansion. The doctrine of eminent domain vests ultimate ownership of all land and natural resources in the state. Under cover of eminent domain, vast tracts of land, forest and water reserves are being handed over to the Indian affiliates of international finance capital.
Land acquired from ordinary people in Chhattisgarh, as also in other parts of India, has been handed over to the industrial houses for the purpose of mining or building large steel and power plants. With a few honourable exceptions, the personnel articulating the agency of state power have almost uniformly possessed a colonial mindset. It is not as if the people have not resisted. The forced takeover of indigenous land is being met with resistance that is multi hued , yet the state has chosen to brand it under the single category of Maoist, and has met it with brutality and human rights violations. The social fabric in many of these regions is today polarized beyond immediate rectification, and the deep fissures in our society will take time to heal
Ladies and Gentlemen, on this solemn occasion, I would like to make an appeal to all of you. In the times we live while oppression is most acutely manifested in remote and local places like Bastar district of Chhattisgarh the truth is that the forces behind such oppression are often global in nature. It is well recognized now that the tsunami-like flow of capital around the world is a source of tremendous tragedy for many communities around the world which do not fit into the ideologically straitjacketed confines of the ‘market economy’.
Countries like South Korea that have suffered the ravages of colonialism in the past and risen from the ashes of the Second World War to become industrially and economically leading nations of the world have a special responsibility today. It is the responsibility of ensuring that they do not do the kind of violence and exploitation to the people of the Third World what they themselves were subjected to in the past by others.
I want to bring up the specific case of the South Korean steel giant POSCO which has embarked on a USD 12 billion dollar project in the Indian state of Orissa, which at USD 12 billion to mine iron ore, build a port and a mega-steel plant.
Indian activists have pointed out repeatedly that from a national point of view the MoU signed by the Orissa government with POSCO to give it the rights to mine over 600 million tonnes of high grade iron or is a scam of immense proportions. According to the original MoU, the royalty that POSCO will pay for the iron ore is around Rs. 24 per tonne whereas the selling price in the international market is around Rs. 5000 today. Besides all this POSCO and its investors from around the world are to be illegally given nearly 5000 acres of land that was originally forest land and cannot be used for any other purpose under Indian law without the consent of forest dwelling people.
For more than five years now the POSCO Pratirodh Sangram Samity (PPSS), a local people’s movement in Jagatsingpur district, has been bravely resisting the POSCO project which threatens the livelihood of thousands of agriculturists, workers and small businesses in the area besides devastating the local environment and ecology. Over 30,000 people, mostly farmers and fisherfolk are expected to be displaced.
Even as we speak here today large contingents of the Orissa police are moving into the villages settled on the targeted land for the POSCO project to uproot local communities using brute force. I would like to appeal to the South Korean people and the people of Gwangju in particular to strongly oppose the POSCO project in solidarity with the brave farmers and fishermen of Jagatsingpur. POSCO should withdraw its investment in this project immediately and an inquiry launched in both South Korea and India into the circumstances under which such a project was considered and cleared.
The spirit of the Gwangju Prize for Human Rights calls upon all of us to continue to oppose violations of human rights in every form, wherever it occurs and whatsoever the costs of such opposition. We remain committed to Peace, but realize that there cannot be any peace without equity and social justice. I am confident that my appeal to you will be heard and responded to and the solidarity of the South Korean people will forever remain with the oppressed people of India and other parts of Asia and the world.
Thank you
Monday, May 16, 2011
Updated Mamata page on Wikipedia
"Mamata Banerjee (Bengali: মমতা বন্দ্যোপাধ্যায়, [mɔːmoːt̪ʰaː bɛːnaːrjiː]; ممتا بنرجی born 5 January 1955) is the Chief Minister-elect of West Bengal (to assume office on 18 May 2011) and the founding chairperson of the Trinamool Congress.[1][2][3] Noted as a firebrand orator and popularly known as "Didi" (meaning 'the elder sister'), she pulled off a landslide victory for the All India Trinamul Congress in West Bengal by defeating the world's longest-serving democratically-elected communist government, i.e. Communist Party of India (Marxist) led Left Front government, eliminating the 34 years of Left's rule in the state.[4][5][6] She opposes Special Economic Zones and forceful land acquisition for industrialization in West Bengal at the cost of agriculturalists and farmers.[1][6]"
Read more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamata_Banerjee
Link to Mamata page on Lok Sabha website: http://india.gov.in/govt/loksabhampbiodata.php?mpcode=39
Read more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamata_Banerjee
Link to Mamata page on Lok Sabha website: http://india.gov.in/govt/loksabhampbiodata.php?mpcode=39
Release 5 million tonnes of foodgrains: Supreme Court
J. Venkatesan, The Hindu, 15 May 2011
To prevent starvation deaths and malnutrition
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
‘In 150 poorest districts, malnutrition is very intense'
‘The position of foodgrains stocks is extremely good'
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
New Delhi: To ensure that no starvation death takes place and people are saved from malnutrition as far as possible, the Supreme Court on Saturday directed the Centre to release five million tonnes of foodgrains immediately for distribution in 150 most poverty-stricken districts or other poorer segments in the country.
Though it was a holiday for the court, a Bench of Justices Dalveer Bhandari and Deepak Verma held a special sitting and passed the order, considering the urgency and gravity of the matter.
The Bench heard Gopal Subramaniam, Solicitor-General; Mohan Parasaran, Additional Solicitor-General; Colin Gonsalves, senior counsel for the petitioner (People's Union for Civil Liberties), and other counsel for the respective parties and passed the order.
The Bench said: “Admittedly, in the 150 poorest districts of India, the problem of malnutrition is very intense and is related to the inadequacy or lack of food in those areas.
The Union of India must provide adequate foodgrains for these 150 poorest districts, on a priority basis.
“A number of cases of malnutrition and starvation are reported from time to time. Subsidised food is really meant for this section of our society. Fortunately, the position of foodgrains stocks in our country is extremely good. Mr. Parasaran, ASG, submits that as on April 1, 2011 there are 44 million tonnes of stocks. Perhaps, never before have foodgrains stocks been so high. The bumper crop of this season will further improve the situation of existing stocks. Even after keeping adequate foodgrains for emergency or unforeseen circumstances, we would still have huge stocks in our godowns.”
Further, it said: “Millions of tonnes of foodgrains are lying in the open for years because of inadequate storage capacity. Admittedly, about 55,000 tonnes of foodgrains rotted in Punjab and Haryana. A very large chunk of foodgrains were destroyed in the recent Punjab fire because the foodgrains were lying in open. In this background, the 5 million tonnes of foodgrains which the Union of India has already undertaken to additionally allocate, must go to the most vulnerable sections of our society and the parties are in total agreement about this proposition.
“Looking to the enormity and gravity of the problem, as a one-time measure, it is absolutely imperative in the larger public interest to direct the Union of India to reserve another 5 million tonnes of foodgrains for distribution to the 150 poorest districts or the extremely poor and vulnerable sections of our society. This additional 5 million tonnes of foodgrains would be over and above 5 million tonnes which the Union of India has already undertaken to allocate.
“The estimated population of the country as of March, 2010 is 117.67 crores and according to the office of the Registrar-General, Census, the projected population of India as in 2011 is 119.3 crores (Planning Commission working Group on Population Stabilisation for the 11th Five Year Plan). We see no rationale in not distributing foodgrains according to the estimate of the Union of India. The food allocation should be based on every year's population estimate as carried out by the Planning Commission or the Registrar-General, in the absence of any official census figure,” the Bench said.
To prevent starvation deaths and malnutrition
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
‘In 150 poorest districts, malnutrition is very intense'
‘The position of foodgrains stocks is extremely good'
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
New Delhi: To ensure that no starvation death takes place and people are saved from malnutrition as far as possible, the Supreme Court on Saturday directed the Centre to release five million tonnes of foodgrains immediately for distribution in 150 most poverty-stricken districts or other poorer segments in the country.
Though it was a holiday for the court, a Bench of Justices Dalveer Bhandari and Deepak Verma held a special sitting and passed the order, considering the urgency and gravity of the matter.
The Bench heard Gopal Subramaniam, Solicitor-General; Mohan Parasaran, Additional Solicitor-General; Colin Gonsalves, senior counsel for the petitioner (People's Union for Civil Liberties), and other counsel for the respective parties and passed the order.
The Bench said: “Admittedly, in the 150 poorest districts of India, the problem of malnutrition is very intense and is related to the inadequacy or lack of food in those areas.
The Union of India must provide adequate foodgrains for these 150 poorest districts, on a priority basis.
“A number of cases of malnutrition and starvation are reported from time to time. Subsidised food is really meant for this section of our society. Fortunately, the position of foodgrains stocks in our country is extremely good. Mr. Parasaran, ASG, submits that as on April 1, 2011 there are 44 million tonnes of stocks. Perhaps, never before have foodgrains stocks been so high. The bumper crop of this season will further improve the situation of existing stocks. Even after keeping adequate foodgrains for emergency or unforeseen circumstances, we would still have huge stocks in our godowns.”
Further, it said: “Millions of tonnes of foodgrains are lying in the open for years because of inadequate storage capacity. Admittedly, about 55,000 tonnes of foodgrains rotted in Punjab and Haryana. A very large chunk of foodgrains were destroyed in the recent Punjab fire because the foodgrains were lying in open. In this background, the 5 million tonnes of foodgrains which the Union of India has already undertaken to additionally allocate, must go to the most vulnerable sections of our society and the parties are in total agreement about this proposition.
“Looking to the enormity and gravity of the problem, as a one-time measure, it is absolutely imperative in the larger public interest to direct the Union of India to reserve another 5 million tonnes of foodgrains for distribution to the 150 poorest districts or the extremely poor and vulnerable sections of our society. This additional 5 million tonnes of foodgrains would be over and above 5 million tonnes which the Union of India has already undertaken to allocate.
“The estimated population of the country as of March, 2010 is 117.67 crores and according to the office of the Registrar-General, Census, the projected population of India as in 2011 is 119.3 crores (Planning Commission working Group on Population Stabilisation for the 11th Five Year Plan). We see no rationale in not distributing foodgrains according to the estimate of the Union of India. The food allocation should be based on every year's population estimate as carried out by the Planning Commission or the Registrar-General, in the absence of any official census figure,” the Bench said.
Democratic war
by V.R. KRISHNA IYER
Frontline, Volume 28 - Issue 10 :: May. 07-20, 2011
The Lokpal must be an independent body accessible to every citizen on any matter of corruption affecting the purity of public life.
IT is well known that corruption is widely prevalent in India. Time and again, acts of corruption have been brought into the public domain. They violate human rights, undermine the rule of law, distort the development process and disempower the Indian state. While there are laws against corruption in India, there exists a wide gap between the law in the books and the law in practice. Therefore, a comprehensive law providing for forfeiture of illegally acquired property, in India and abroad, of public servants is the need of the hour.
The Jan Lokpal should have independence in its functioning. It must have the power to inquire into, decide and forfeit illegally acquired property of public servants, their relatives, associates, name lenders, and so on. For discharging the onerous duties of the Lokpal under the said enactment, that office must be given wide powers, including the power to call even from Swiss banks details of funds deposited by public servants. Power should be conferred on it to attach and confiscate movable and immovable property even before a final decision is taken. There must also be a provision stating that all transfers of illegally acquired property shall be void if such transfer is effected after the issue of notice of forfeiture. The accused public servant should be burdened with the duty to prove that all the assets he possessed are legally acquired wealth.
The Lokpal should be headed by a former judge of the Supreme Court with impeccable integrity. There has to be a provision for appeal to the Supreme Court.
The Lokpal will be an independent body accessible to every citizen on any matter of corruption affecting the purity of public life and will act only according to its chaste conscience. The members of the Lokpal body can act without fear or favour or affection or ill will of anyone in India, be he ever so high. Its jurisdiction will extend to investigate the proceedings of the Prime Minister, the President or other public authority or public body functioning in a manner affecting public interest, public life or work. The Lokpal cannot be changed by the government and can be replaced only by resignation or a unanimous decision of Parliament, Prime Minister and President.
Such a body will be supreme in its operations and its guidance will extend over the executive, legislative and judicative wings of government. The Lokpal and other members of the body will be selected by an independent authority in India and they can be prosecuted or subject to any court's jurisdiction only on a specific motion for that purpose in Parliament or the State Assemblies and approved by a two-thirds majority of each House.
On the other hand, the Lokpal, acting on the basis of a majority, can quash any decision or order of any authority that is found delinquent after a full and fair inquiry.
India has seen many avatars of corruption – the Bofors scandal, the fodder scam, the 2G spectrum allocation scam, the swindle in the Commonwealth Games preparations, and so on. The people of the country strongly believe that toothless pieces of legislation made by legislatures are the reason why corrupt people go scot free. The people also seem to have lost belief in the judicial system, which has been able to bring to justice only a few of the corruption-accused and that too after a minimum of 10 years.
The people have realised that their elected representatives do not do any legislative work and have started pointing to acts of corruption through the strong media. The people's struggle for independence from the British has now turned into a democratic war against corruption.
How can one expect a Prime Minister who does not exercise his franchise to wipe the tears of the aam aadmi who is suffering on account of rampant corruption? Development is now seen to be synonymous with corruption. To make the legislature do its duty, the people, who believe in a system of good governance, have turned to weapons of non-violence, such as satyagraha. For development to happen, India first needs independence from corruption.
Power is tempered with accountability; sans investigation, power is tower. This principle has been accepted in the Bill now introduced. But the supreme functions vested in this new instrument must be free from state control. Or else it becomes another tool of torture in the hands of the executive – a remedy aggravating the malady.
Prashant Bhushan has made a sound critique of the Bill. The larger the power, the more responsible is the accountability, lest the instrument destroy democracy. Today, if the judiciary delivers an authoritarian judgment, there is none to correct it nor is it accountable to any agency or authority. This makes judges a body of dictators.
The appointment of judges and the critique and correction of their fiats are vital. What is provided on this behalf is insignificant. Besides, access to correct the blunders of this arbitrary body, to make its selection democratic and transparent and its performance subject to a democratic organ has not been given due consideration.
Under the guise of control over judicial and other instruments, we cannot create a royalty above all. That is, the choice is between fascism and a self-created authoritarian Grand Jury. The verdict of the jury for misbehaviour of the judiciary and executive authority will make the whole system self-contained and democratic without totalitarian bias.
Judges are not jungle creatures but maintain standards of conduct. During the days when J.S. Verma was the Chief Justice of India, an informal code of conduct was evolved, which commanded the concurrence of the judges of the High Court and the Supreme Court. This code of conduct, to have a binding force, must be incorporated in the Constitution itself and made enforceable. Thus, the standards of conduct of judges abhor corruption, misuse of power or other oblique behaviour. They can be enforced by the Grand Jury. The delinquent conduct not only of the judiciary but of all public authorities must be dealt with by the Grand Jury.
This steering body with final authority must be selected by a commission for appointment and performance. No longer confined to the judiciary but including every instrument that enjoys public power, the Grand Jury will sit for a period of 10 years and can be removed for misconduct only by the paramount power of the two Houses of Parliament. These are matters that have to be refined by the draftsman and presented to Parliament. These are rough ideas and have to be debated by Parliament and approved with a two-thirds majority. The whole process is cumbersome, but when complicated problems face a nation, the process has to be complicated. Fiat Justitia Ruat Caelum (Let justice be done though the heavens fall).
Two fundamentals
Two fundamentals that make the Grand Jury itself accountable may be indicated briefly. Public power becomes a terror unless it is accountable to the nation and makes itself accessible to the littlest Indian who has a grievance of corruption or improper behaviour justifying an inquiry into the conduct of the judges implicated. In principle, access to every citizen and accountability to ‘We, the People of India' is accepted in the Lokpal Bill. I have suggested the creation of a basic authority with supreme powers. If both Houses of Parliament, each with two-thirds majority, have the power to appoint and to dismiss, surely it will be a grand wonder of paramount power.
Modifications and refinements may be necessary in what I have said. A national debate may bring out flaws, and faults and failings may be disclosed and corrected at the final stage. Egregious errors cannot be avoided in advance. Only when the nation debates the issue latent errors will become patent.
It is my conviction, as I have repeated several times, that an appointments commission should be set up with transparency and opportunity for the public to speak up. When this article gains national circulation, new thought will surface and correction may still be possible. A performance commission also may be necessary. Perhaps, it is good to remember Edmund Burke's observations: “Among a people generally corrupt, liberty cannot long exist.”
The Grand Jury I envision will be a powerful body, itself accountable to the people through Parliament, and its processes will be transparent and progressive. Glasnost and Perestroika are principles that apply to all instruments where state power is vested. After all, the greater the power, the more dangerous is the abuse. It is a fact that the former Chief Justice of India has been accused of corruption, and yet the Prime Minister has kept silent. While I have demanded power in Parliament even against the Grand Jury, that is because “in all forms of government people is the legislator”.
The former Chief Justice of India with grave aspersions against him is silent and the Prime Minister and Parliament are keeping guilty silence. But an event of corruption has happened, upon which it is difficult to speak and impossible to be silent. Dear Prime Minister, still I hold you as a statesman and straightforward repository of power. Parliamentarians, remember your duty to the nation. Speak up against corruption. Silence is grave guilt where it is your duty to speak on the side of the nation.
Dear Prime Minister, I still have great hopes from you. Act now and make the judiciary a credible instrument beyond suspicion, beyond delinquency. Manmohan Singh, you are the guardian of democracy for the nonce. Therefore, I cite Swami Vivekananda to impress upon you the basics of democracy and godism:
“Feel, my children, feel; feel for the poor, the ignorant, the downtrodden; feel till the heart stops and the brain reels and you think you will go mad…. I do not believe in a God, who cannot give me bread here, giving me eternal bliss in heaven!”
Frontline, Volume 28 - Issue 10 :: May. 07-20, 2011
The Lokpal must be an independent body accessible to every citizen on any matter of corruption affecting the purity of public life.
IT is well known that corruption is widely prevalent in India. Time and again, acts of corruption have been brought into the public domain. They violate human rights, undermine the rule of law, distort the development process and disempower the Indian state. While there are laws against corruption in India, there exists a wide gap between the law in the books and the law in practice. Therefore, a comprehensive law providing for forfeiture of illegally acquired property, in India and abroad, of public servants is the need of the hour.
The Jan Lokpal should have independence in its functioning. It must have the power to inquire into, decide and forfeit illegally acquired property of public servants, their relatives, associates, name lenders, and so on. For discharging the onerous duties of the Lokpal under the said enactment, that office must be given wide powers, including the power to call even from Swiss banks details of funds deposited by public servants. Power should be conferred on it to attach and confiscate movable and immovable property even before a final decision is taken. There must also be a provision stating that all transfers of illegally acquired property shall be void if such transfer is effected after the issue of notice of forfeiture. The accused public servant should be burdened with the duty to prove that all the assets he possessed are legally acquired wealth.
The Lokpal should be headed by a former judge of the Supreme Court with impeccable integrity. There has to be a provision for appeal to the Supreme Court.
The Lokpal will be an independent body accessible to every citizen on any matter of corruption affecting the purity of public life and will act only according to its chaste conscience. The members of the Lokpal body can act without fear or favour or affection or ill will of anyone in India, be he ever so high. Its jurisdiction will extend to investigate the proceedings of the Prime Minister, the President or other public authority or public body functioning in a manner affecting public interest, public life or work. The Lokpal cannot be changed by the government and can be replaced only by resignation or a unanimous decision of Parliament, Prime Minister and President.
Such a body will be supreme in its operations and its guidance will extend over the executive, legislative and judicative wings of government. The Lokpal and other members of the body will be selected by an independent authority in India and they can be prosecuted or subject to any court's jurisdiction only on a specific motion for that purpose in Parliament or the State Assemblies and approved by a two-thirds majority of each House.
On the other hand, the Lokpal, acting on the basis of a majority, can quash any decision or order of any authority that is found delinquent after a full and fair inquiry.
India has seen many avatars of corruption – the Bofors scandal, the fodder scam, the 2G spectrum allocation scam, the swindle in the Commonwealth Games preparations, and so on. The people of the country strongly believe that toothless pieces of legislation made by legislatures are the reason why corrupt people go scot free. The people also seem to have lost belief in the judicial system, which has been able to bring to justice only a few of the corruption-accused and that too after a minimum of 10 years.
The people have realised that their elected representatives do not do any legislative work and have started pointing to acts of corruption through the strong media. The people's struggle for independence from the British has now turned into a democratic war against corruption.
How can one expect a Prime Minister who does not exercise his franchise to wipe the tears of the aam aadmi who is suffering on account of rampant corruption? Development is now seen to be synonymous with corruption. To make the legislature do its duty, the people, who believe in a system of good governance, have turned to weapons of non-violence, such as satyagraha. For development to happen, India first needs independence from corruption.
Power is tempered with accountability; sans investigation, power is tower. This principle has been accepted in the Bill now introduced. But the supreme functions vested in this new instrument must be free from state control. Or else it becomes another tool of torture in the hands of the executive – a remedy aggravating the malady.
Prashant Bhushan has made a sound critique of the Bill. The larger the power, the more responsible is the accountability, lest the instrument destroy democracy. Today, if the judiciary delivers an authoritarian judgment, there is none to correct it nor is it accountable to any agency or authority. This makes judges a body of dictators.
The appointment of judges and the critique and correction of their fiats are vital. What is provided on this behalf is insignificant. Besides, access to correct the blunders of this arbitrary body, to make its selection democratic and transparent and its performance subject to a democratic organ has not been given due consideration.
Under the guise of control over judicial and other instruments, we cannot create a royalty above all. That is, the choice is between fascism and a self-created authoritarian Grand Jury. The verdict of the jury for misbehaviour of the judiciary and executive authority will make the whole system self-contained and democratic without totalitarian bias.
Judges are not jungle creatures but maintain standards of conduct. During the days when J.S. Verma was the Chief Justice of India, an informal code of conduct was evolved, which commanded the concurrence of the judges of the High Court and the Supreme Court. This code of conduct, to have a binding force, must be incorporated in the Constitution itself and made enforceable. Thus, the standards of conduct of judges abhor corruption, misuse of power or other oblique behaviour. They can be enforced by the Grand Jury. The delinquent conduct not only of the judiciary but of all public authorities must be dealt with by the Grand Jury.
This steering body with final authority must be selected by a commission for appointment and performance. No longer confined to the judiciary but including every instrument that enjoys public power, the Grand Jury will sit for a period of 10 years and can be removed for misconduct only by the paramount power of the two Houses of Parliament. These are matters that have to be refined by the draftsman and presented to Parliament. These are rough ideas and have to be debated by Parliament and approved with a two-thirds majority. The whole process is cumbersome, but when complicated problems face a nation, the process has to be complicated. Fiat Justitia Ruat Caelum (Let justice be done though the heavens fall).
Two fundamentals
Two fundamentals that make the Grand Jury itself accountable may be indicated briefly. Public power becomes a terror unless it is accountable to the nation and makes itself accessible to the littlest Indian who has a grievance of corruption or improper behaviour justifying an inquiry into the conduct of the judges implicated. In principle, access to every citizen and accountability to ‘We, the People of India' is accepted in the Lokpal Bill. I have suggested the creation of a basic authority with supreme powers. If both Houses of Parliament, each with two-thirds majority, have the power to appoint and to dismiss, surely it will be a grand wonder of paramount power.
Modifications and refinements may be necessary in what I have said. A national debate may bring out flaws, and faults and failings may be disclosed and corrected at the final stage. Egregious errors cannot be avoided in advance. Only when the nation debates the issue latent errors will become patent.
It is my conviction, as I have repeated several times, that an appointments commission should be set up with transparency and opportunity for the public to speak up. When this article gains national circulation, new thought will surface and correction may still be possible. A performance commission also may be necessary. Perhaps, it is good to remember Edmund Burke's observations: “Among a people generally corrupt, liberty cannot long exist.”
The Grand Jury I envision will be a powerful body, itself accountable to the people through Parliament, and its processes will be transparent and progressive. Glasnost and Perestroika are principles that apply to all instruments where state power is vested. After all, the greater the power, the more dangerous is the abuse. It is a fact that the former Chief Justice of India has been accused of corruption, and yet the Prime Minister has kept silent. While I have demanded power in Parliament even against the Grand Jury, that is because “in all forms of government people is the legislator”.
The former Chief Justice of India with grave aspersions against him is silent and the Prime Minister and Parliament are keeping guilty silence. But an event of corruption has happened, upon which it is difficult to speak and impossible to be silent. Dear Prime Minister, still I hold you as a statesman and straightforward repository of power. Parliamentarians, remember your duty to the nation. Speak up against corruption. Silence is grave guilt where it is your duty to speak on the side of the nation.
Dear Prime Minister, I still have great hopes from you. Act now and make the judiciary a credible instrument beyond suspicion, beyond delinquency. Manmohan Singh, you are the guardian of democracy for the nonce. Therefore, I cite Swami Vivekananda to impress upon you the basics of democracy and godism:
“Feel, my children, feel; feel for the poor, the ignorant, the downtrodden; feel till the heart stops and the brain reels and you think you will go mad…. I do not believe in a God, who cannot give me bread here, giving me eternal bliss in heaven!”
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