On Saturday I attended the ‘Meet Your Candidates’ session organised by AGNI. Only Priya Dutt (Cong) and Mahesh Jethmalani (BJP) turned up. Jethmalani sure outshined Priya Dutt in answering questions and giving his perspective on issues. He had the advantage of being a lawyer, a good orator and being the newcomer without any baggage of past unfulfilled promises. Also, his party is not in power either in the State or Center. So he could go on laying the blame for everything on the Congress. But his stand on terror was dubious. While he went on harping about 26/11 as a failure he wasn’t able to give a convincing answer on state-sponsored terrorism in Kandhamal. And was totally silent about Gujarat. Priya Dutt wasn’t asked about her stand on the 1984 anti-Sikh riots accused either.
Monday, April 20, 2009
The party whip – Bane of Indian politics
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Reverse outsourcing?
The Obama administration’s recent moves to curb outsourcing of American jobs are just a temporary setback to the move towards a globalised world where time, distance and other barriers disappear and every person/ country does what he/she is best at. This is inevitable if the economic theory of “Comparative Advantage’ holds true. And actually it wouldn’t be too bad for the US either. It is better than others at a lot of things. India, for one, could outsource a lot of things to the US
For a start we could hire US investigators to probe crimes in India. Indian police would pass on all the evidence related to a case to the US team which would analyze it and report back with their recommendations. Next we could outsource implementation of law and order to them. They need not be present in India. They can monitor us from their base in the US using hi-tech satellite imagery, etc and perhaps also use UAVs and other sophisticated weapons to hunt criminals just like in the movie ‘Enemy of the State’.
If this works fine we can let them patrol our borders. They seem to have a better understanding of our principal adversaries – Pakistan and China – and will be able to anticipate their moves better.
Our judicial system is overburdened and there are no indications this will ease anytime soon. The next step could be to hive off our judicial system and let the US manage it.
The last step can be the Parliament. Our legislators are simply incapable of formulating and passing much-needed laws. The US seems to do it much better than us.
All this will free up our citizens to work in call centers and back offices of American companies. So it will be a win-win deal for both sides. I’m sure Obama won’t mind :D And it won’t be something new for us either. We have experienced it before.
Implemet Swiss banking in India?
The recent incident where the US Govt got UBS to agree to reveal details of some 52,000 accounts of US citizens has been taken by some as a ray of hope that someday India would also get details of Indian money in Swiss banks. If US can do it, so could we. However, I don’t subscribe to that optimism. I don’t think our government will do it. Afterall, the illegal money of all our politicians, businessmen, gangsters and godmen (the lines between them are becoming blurred by the day) lies in Swiss banks. So why would they shoot themselves in the foot?
And, if through public pressure that miracle does happen, they will have shifted most of that money to some other banking haven by then.
Instead of dreaming about what can’t be achieved why don’t we think practically and implement Swiss banking secrecy laws in India? The bottomline is – if you can’t stop or outlaw something, legalize it. If we do so, most of the black money won’t have to go out of India and we won’t lose precious foreign exchange. We may even see an influx of foreign exchange from the crooks of the world. This would go a long way towards alleviating poverty. What say?
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Dammed if you do, dammed if you don't
The conduct of the Tamil Nadu lawyers in surprising. They of all people should know that a citizen of India has a right to freedom of speech. So why should they have objection to Subramaniam Swamy’s anti-LTTE statements? The LTTE has been banned by GOI as a terrorist organisation. The lawyers’ behaviour reeks of separatism and utter disregard for the constitution of India.
Normally the police is criticized for not taking action against ‘supposedly peaceful’ mobs. Now when police did take action, maybe more stringent than needed, we have a problem. It is a case of dammed if you do, dammed if you don’t. The police may be at fault in this case, but the lawyers certainly are. I don’t understand the SC’s stand. It seems to be siding with the legal fraternity. While it has asked the State Govt. to immediately remove the police station from court premises it has said nothing about the lawyers’ behaviour so far. We have seen this kind of partiality from the SC before. When it comes to RTI, corruption, etc in other arms of the state the SC is gung-ho about going after the culprits. But when it is a question of judges or even lawyers, the SC goes soft. This is hypocricy.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Astrologers and bullshit
This post was prompted by a DNA article which called astrologer R. Narayanan 'the Nostradamus' of the 21st century. It credits him with some fantastic predictions and quotes him saying Monday, Feb 23, 2009 will be 'deadly'. Like his ilk he proceeds to dish out generic predictions which have no timeline and are vaguely worded. Most times I have a good laugh at these things but sometimes it rankles me that people don't see through their hollow craft. Here is the article
"THIS MONDAY WILL BE DEADLY, WARNS ASTROLOGER
He is undoubtedly the 21st century Nostradamus. Having predicted the fall of MGR and the ascension of Manmohan Singh, 77-year-old, retired central government officer R Narayanan predicts a political upheaval in India, a volatile stock market and crash in real estate prices due to an unusual conjunction of six celestial bodies viz Sun, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Uranus and Moon in Capricorn constellation on February 23.
"Because of this phenomenon, both good and evil will occur in the world. I foresee a major war in the Middle East involving Israel, Jordan and Iran. A war is also imminent between India and Pakistan. Political leaders in India will suffer health hazards and IT staffers working in the US, the UK and Middle East may return home," the numerologist told DNA from his first floor flat of a posh locality in Chennai.
He also predicts terror attacks in India and the West as well as natural calamities such as an earthquake occurring in the Himalayan region, Andaman and Nicobar islands, southern states of India, Afghanistan, Los Angeles, Ivory Coast, Africa, Japan and Jakarta.
"We come from a family of traditional astrologers with my ancestors being much sought after by the kings of Ramnad [Ramanathapuram]. My father was a teacher and he groomed Abdul Kalam by providing him shelter in our home. He didn't believe in astrology and always insisted on education. But by divine grace, I developed an extraordinary extra sensory perception following a head injury at the age of 24 and have since been able to foretell the future based on the science of astronomy," he explains.
The injury left Narayanan in a state of coma for close to 20 days in a Ramanathapuram hospital. His sojourn of premonitions based on extra sensory perceptions began then.
"After I regained consciousness, I foresaw a grave danger for the doctor who was supposed to conduct my surgery. I told the doctor about it. But the doctor dismissed it as hallucinations due to my injury. Unfortunately, the next morning I was informed that the doctor had collapsed due to a massive heart attack," he says.
Narayanan was soon discharged from hospital as he also predicted the fate of a fellow patient, who too succumbed to illness.
Narayanan has a huge corporate following. Many corporate entities seek his advice on names and logos."
I never heard of any of his predictions before. Which terror attacks had he predicted. Why doesn’t DNA give us details of when these predictions of his happened and when the actual events took place?
To me it is nothing but bullshit. If these people who claim to predict the future really have the capability to do so then let them make concrete predictions with specific timelines. Say like India and Pakistan will declare war on each other on XX-XX-XXXX and the war will last for XXX days. Or a X.X magnitude earthquake will strike so and so region on XX-XX-XXXX. Till that happens the media should not give them undue publicity.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
I'm better off not believing in any religion
2 Afghans face death over translation of Quran
KABUL: No one knows who brought the book to the mosque, or at least no one dares say The pocket-size translation of the Quran has already landed six men in prison in Afghanistan and left two of them begging judges to spare their lives. They're accused of modifying the Quran and their fate could be decided Sunday in court.
The trial illustrates what critics call the undue influence of hard-line clerics in Afghanistan, a major hurdle as the country tries to establish a lawful society amid war and militant violence.
The book appeared among gifts left for the cleric at a major Kabul mosque after Friday prayers in September 2007. It was a translation of the Quran into one of Afghanistan's languages, with a note giving permission to reprint the text as long as it was distributed for free.
Some of the men of the mosque said the book would be useful to Afghans who didn't know Arabic, so they took up a collection for printing. The mosque's cleric asked Ahmad Ghaws Zalmai, a longtime friend, to get the books printed.
But as some of the 1,000 copies made their way to conservative Muslim clerics in Kabul, whispers began, then an outcry.
Many clerics rejected the book because it did not include the original Arabic verses alongside the translation. It's a particularly sensitive detail for Muslims, who regard the Arabic Quran as words given directly by God. A translation is not considered a Quran itself, and a mistranslation could warp God's word.
The clerics said Zalmai, a stocky 54-year-old spokesman for the attorney general, was trying to anoint himself as a prophet. They said his book was trying to replace the Quran, not offer a simple translation. Translated editions of the Quran abound in Kabul markets, but they include Arabic verses.
The country's powerful Islamic council issued an edict condemning the book.
``In all the mosques in Afghanistan, all the mullahs said, 'Zalmai is an infidel. He should be killed,''' Zalmai recounted as he sat outside the chief judge's chambers waiting for a recent hearing.
Zalmai lost friends quickly. He was condemned by colleagues and even by others involved in the book's printing. A mob stoned his house one night, said his brother, Mahmood Ghaws.
Police arrested Zalmai as he was fleeing to Pakistan, along with three other men the government says were trying to help him escape. The publisher and the mosque's cleric, who signed a letter endorsing the book, were also jailed.
There is no law in Afghanistan prohibiting the translation of the Quran. But Zalmai is accused of violating Islamic Shariah law by modifying the Quran. The courts in Afghanistan, an Islamic state, are empowered to apply Shariah law when there are no applicable existing statutes.
And Afghanistan's court system appears to be stacked against those accused of religious crimes. Judges don't want to seem soft on potential heretics and lawyers don't want to be seen defending them, said Afzal Shurmach Nooristani, whose Afghan Legal Aid group is defending Zalmai.
The prosecutor wants the death penalty for Zalmai and the cleric, who have now spent more than a year in prison.
Sentences on religious infractions can be harsh. In January 2008, a court sentenced a journalism student to death for blasphemy for asking questions about women's rights under Islam. An appeals court reduced the sentence to 20 years in prison. His lawyers appealed again and the case is pending.
In 2006, an Afghan man was sentenced to death for converting to Christianity. He was later ruled insane and was given asylum in Italy. Islamic leaders and the parliament accused President Hamid Karzai of being a puppet for the West for letting him live.
Nooristani, who is also defending the journalism student, said he and his colleagues have received death threats.
``The mullahs in the mosques have said whoever defends an infidel is an infidel,'' Nooristani said.
The legal aid organization, which usually represents impoverished defendants, is defending Zalmai because no one else would take the case.
``We went to all the lawyers and they said, 'We can't help you because all the mullahs are against you. If we defend you, the mullahs will say that we should be killed.' We went six months without a lawyer,'' Zalmai said outside the judge's chambers.
The publisher was originally sentenced to five years in prison. Zalmai and the cleric were sentenced to 20, and now the prosecutor is demanding the death penalty for the two as a judge hears appeals.
Nearly everyone in court claims ignorance now. The mosque's mullah says he never read the book and that he was duped into signing the letter. The print shop owner says neither he nor any of his employees read the book, noting that it's illegal for them to read materials they publish.
Zalmai pleaded for forgiveness before a January hearing, saying he had assumed a stand-alone translation wasn't a problem.
``You can find these types of translations in Turkey, in Russia, in France, in Italy,'' he said.
When the chief judge later banged his gavel to silence shouting lawyers and nodded at Zalmai to explain himself, the defendant stood and chanted Quranic verses as proof that he was a devout Muslim who should be forgiven.
Shariah law is applied differently in Islamic states. Saudi Arabia claims the Quran as its constitution, while Malaysia has separate religious and secular courts.
But since there is no ultimate arbiter of religious questions in Afghanistan, judges must strike a balance between the country's laws and proclamations by clerics or the Islamic council, called the Ulema council.
Judges are ``so nervous about annoying the Ulema council and being criticized that they tend to push the Islamic cases aside and just defer to what others say,'' said John Dempsey, a legal expert with the U.S. Institute of Peace in Kabul.
Deferring to the council means that edicts issued by the group of clerics can influence rulings more than laws on the books or a judge's own interpretation of Shariah law, he said.
Judges have to be careful about whom they might anger with their rulings. In September, gunmen killed a top judge with Afghanistan's counter-narcotics court. Other judges have been gunned down as well.
Mahmood Ghaws said that even if his brother is found innocent, their family will never be treated the same.
``When I go out in the street, people don't say hello to me in the way they used to,'' he said. ``They don't ask after my family.''
Sunday, January 4, 2009
All-out War with Pakistan is not feasible
Since 26/11 the hawks in India have been singing the war tune. Thankfully there seem to be some sensible people in power who recognize that, regardless of whether Pakistan co-operates in bringing the perpetrators to justice or not, a war with nuclear-armed Pakistan is not feasible.
We must face the reality that India vs Pakistan is not like Israel vs Palestine where one side can simple pummel the other. A war will mean huge losses for India as well. And we might not even come to a stage where we can win it given that US, China and others are likely to intervene, either diplomatically like in 1948, or even militarily. And we certainly don’t want Delhi and Mumbai to be nuked even if we manage to nuke the whole of Pakistan in return. This catastrophe is simply unacceptable.
Also, in the unlikely event that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are neutralized and we manage to defeat Pakistan what will we do? Many areas of Pakistan are not in its control today and we won’t be able to exercise control there either. Look at what is happening in Afghanistan and Iraq. If the sole superpower of the world can’t handle occupation of a foreign country, guessing the plight of an Indian force occupying Pakistan is a no-brainer.
I’m not saying we should not do anything. There are other options we can and should be trying. Some of these are
1) Build pressure through international community – An all-out war on the diplomatic front is the 1st and foremost thing we should do. We need to give the international community concrete proof of Pakistan’s complicity in 26/11 and other attacks. We should go hammer-and-tongs in all bilateral and multilateral for a about Pakistan’s role as the ‘terror’ capital of the world. It should not just be words but irrefutable proof which would stand in a court of law. I’m afraid the track record of our investigation agencies in this matter is very poor and it’s the biggest shortcoming we have
At the same time we should be careful to emphasize that it is rogue, but extremely powerful, elements in Pakistani’s military & political establishment that are responsible for the terror and not Pakistani citizens in general. It makes no sense to alienate all Pakistanis in general. Pakistani citizens are as much a victim of terror as we are and we should sympathize with them through all media available to us. Our aim should be to alienate the hardliners in Pakistan.
2) Spend more on defense. Revamp the intelligence network – Over the years we have neglected our defense capabilities. We must invest heavily in hi-tech surveillance equipment and fence the remaining border with Pakistan to prevent trespassing by militants. Ditto for our ‘open’ seas. Our defense forces need cutting-edge ammo, not sub-standard equipment dished out by our PSUs. There should be no compromise on quality as far as defense equipment is concerned.
Our intelligence network is in shables. Multiple agencies, no-cordination, the list of what's wrong can go on. An urgent revamp is necessary
3) Economic war – Cripple Pakistan’s economy by hitting their exports. Give subsidies in whatever form feasible (keeping in mind WTO and other obligations) or take steps to make Indian exporters who compete with Pakistan’s major exports more competitive. Shut down the routes taken by terror funding. Undoubtably, Swiss banks would be a major conduit.
4) Surgical strikes – While a full-scale invasion is not feasible surgical strikes can be tried. We know the co-ordinates on many of the terror camps. These strikes may provoke some border skirmishes from Pakistan and calls for peace from international community but I doubt a full-fledged attack from Pakistan. It is something worth thinking about.
5) Diplomatic ties – I would have no objection to breaking off diplomatic and other ties (cricket, films, actors, etc) if only to put across the point that enough is enough. Pakistan’s people also need to pressurize their govt. to act against terror.
6) Kashmir – We can keep shouting from the rooftops that Kashmir is an integral part of India and that it is a bilateral issues b/w India and Pakistan. But that is far from the truth. On what basis do we have a right to rule Kashmir? An accession treaty signed by a Maharaja? How can a democratic nation cite an instrument from an unelected ruler? Didn’t we have a duty to hold a referendum? And if a maharaja’s word is word of the people then why did we annex Hyderabad from the Nizam? He wanted his state to be part of Pakistan. It is sheer hypocrisy on our part. History cannot be undone now but I feel it s high time we took serious steps to convince Kashmiris that they are better off being part of India, hold a referendum in the Kashmir we occupy and show the world that we are right. If we fail in this the let Kashmir go. True, this would raise the spectre of separatism in TN, Punjab and elsewhere but that cannot be a reason for not trying to solve the Kashmir problem. It would be the best test to decide whether this motley group of states called India deserves to be called a nation.
7) Muslims in India – Atrocities by Hindutva forces (RSS, VHP and their affiliates) only acts as fuel to stoke passions against India across the border. We must take tough action against these elements. And also against Muslim organisations like SIMI which mislead Muslims and turn them into terrorists. This vicious cycle of we kill you and you kill us needs to be stopped somewhere.
Even if we take action on a few of these fronts we may reap rich rewards.
