Beacon only for dignitaries: SC
Red beacon can be used only by high dignitaries holding constitutional posts while on duty, the Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday, putting an end to its misuse by politicians and bureaucrats, which a Bench termed “Raj mentality.”
Karzai to renew request for lethal military aid from India
Dilemma faces New Delhi as key strategic partner’s request could alienate U.S.
President Hamid Karzai will renew his request for Indian supplies of lethal military equipment during a scheduled visit to India later this week, highly placed Afghan diplomatic sources toldThe Hindu . The equipment include 105-millimeter howitzers,An-32 aircraft and Mi-17 helicopters,
In a strategic partnership agreement signed in 2011, Afghanistan’s first with any foreign country, India promised to assist in “training, equipping and capacity-building programmes for [the] Afghan National Security Forces.”
However, New Delhi has stonewalled Mr. Karzai’s requests, first revealed by The Hindu in December 2012, saying there are contractual issues to be resolved with suppliers in Russia.
“I think it is high time for New Delhi to take a call,” says India’s former Ambassador to Afghanistan, Vivek Katju. “Procrastinating on a request for help from a friend in need sends an awful message.”
Military worries
Sources familiar with the Afghan military’s capacity-development programme say the country’s request is intended to bridge several key gaps.
India has so far agreed to supply two Cheetah light helicopters, which are expected to be delivered in May. However, there is no clarity on when the other aircraft will be delivered.
Earlier this year, the Pentagon terminated contracts of badly-needed Mi-17s from a Russian firm, as the supplier was also providing the equipment to Syria — thus violating United States sanctions directed at President Bashar al-Asad’s regime. India-provided helicopters could part fill a gap that is affecting troop mobility and casualty evacuation.
Afghanistan also wants India to have six ageing An-32s refitted in Ukraine, where the Indian Air Force is now upgrading its own fleet.
Afghanistan has received two of four modern C-130 transport aircraft from the United States, where crew are undergoing training. There are concerns, though, that the country will find it hard to service and maintain the expensive aircraft. Earlier, 20 Italian-made C27A, purchased for over $500 million, had to be scrapped after problems with maintenance and spare parts proved impossible to resolve.
Finally, Afghanistan wants hand-me-down A2.A18 105-milimetre howitzer, a robust and rugged weapon India has used for years. India is in the process of phasing out its 105-milimetre and 130-milimetre with state-of-the-art United States-made M.777 howitzers.
The Afghan army now has an estimated 84 second-hand A2.A18s — donated by Slovakia and Bosnia — but needs greater numbers for its expanding mountain counter-insurgency units.
Mounting worries
Mr. Karzai’s renewed request comes among mounting worries over the future of Afghanistan’s security. NATO’s troop strength, an official for the western military alliance told The Hindu , is scheduled to decline from the 60,000 soldiers who will be present at the time of elections scheduled in April, to 20,000 in September. It will drop further, to a still-to-be determined level of between 8,000-12,000 troops after that, serving in what NATO describes as a “residual support mission.”
The Afghan National Security Force’s strength, on the basis of commitments agreed to with a consortium of international donors, is expanding to 3,52,000, for which there are funding commitments running to 2017.
Funding for the Afghan forces, however, is contingent on the signing of a Bilateral Security Arrangement (BSA), which will provide a legal framework for United States troops staying on in the country after 2014. NATO is expected to conclude a separate Status of Forces Agreement once the BSA is signed.
Last month, Mr. Karzai summoned the Loya Jirga, or general assembly of elders, to discuss the agreed text of the BSA. The Loya Jirga approved the BSA, but the President still refused to sign, saying he wants further commitments to Afghan stability from the U.S.
“Frankly, a NATO official told The Hindu , “the deadline for this is February, 2014. If the BSA is not signed by the end of that month, when NATO Defence Ministers are scheduled to meet, there will be questions not just about continued military assistance to Afghanistan, but all aid.”
Eminent scholar Ali Jalali says, “I think there is a broad consensus both among Mr. Karzai’s opponents and supporters that the BSA must be signed. “The failure to do so is creating deep concerns about Afghanistan’s future among the country’s people.”
Centre approves Rs. 7,346 crore package for Uttarakhand
An additional allocation of Rs. 100 crore was also made
The Cabinet Committee on Uttarakhand (CCU) approved a package of Rs. 7,346 crore for the flood-ravaged Uttarakhand.
CCU formed
The CCU, which was formed under the Uttarakhand Reconstruction and Rehabilitation plan, held a meeting in New Delhi on Monday under the Chairmanship of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. In the meeting, other than Rs. 7,346 crore, an additional allocation of Rs. 100 crore was made for Uttarakhand.
The additional Rs. 100 crore would be given for the compensation that is being borne by the State government and is being given to the disaster-affected people in the State, even though it does not fall under the National Disaster Response Force’s (NDRF) guidelines. Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna has agreed to spend the money on the eight districts in the State other than the flood-ravaged districts of Rudraprayag, Chamoli, Uttarkashi, Bageshwar, and Pithoragarh.
The compensation would be spent in eight districts apart from the flood-ravaged districts
Of the Rs. 1,114 crore sanctioned by the Centre, Rs. 1,090 crore has been released: Anand
NGT pulls up APPCB
The National Green Tribunal (NGT), Southern Bench, on Tuesday, pulled up the Andhra Pradesh Pollution Control Board (APPCB) for stating that it had no role in establishing an international cricket stadium at the foothills of Tirupati.
Taking suo motu cognisance of a news report published in The Hindu on December 3, the Tribunal had restrained the authorities in Andhra Pradesh from proceeding further in establishing the stadium.
Stating that the proposed plan would likely disturb and affect the ecology and environment, the Tribunal directed the authorities to file their replies.
When the matter came up on Tuesday before the Bench, comprising its judicial member, Justice M.Chockalingam, and expert member, Prof. R. Nagendran, Senior District Environment Engineer, Tirupati, on behalf of the APPCB, filed an affidavit stating that the Board had no role to play in the matter and had not issued any order. Angered over APPCB’s statement, Justice Chockalingam asked the counsel for the APPCB whether there was any inspection conducted by the authorities before the Chief Minister laid foundation for the construction and whether any consent was obtained from the APPCB before commencing the project.
Counsel for Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam (TTD) stated that the property now earmarked for the proposed construction belonged to TTD and was leased out to Sri Venkateswara University.
After hearing the submissions, the Tribunal added the Registrar as a party and directed him to file an affidavit in respect of the allegations levelled against him.
The Principal Chief Conservator of Forests was also directed to file an affidavit on steps and action taken by them, in the next hearing.
Regarding the absence of President of Andhra Pradesh Cricket Association, the Bench warned of a coercive action if he fails to appear in the next hearing on January 6.
Doublespeak on women’s rights
One year ago, India went into convulsions over the brutal gang rape of a young Delhi physiotherapy intern.
She struggled to fight the odds, but succumbed in the end. The young woman died against her own desperate wish to recover and live life fully and normally, without in any way feeling diminished for having been through the ordeal. With her exemplary courage and matter-of-fact defiance of the rape-victim stereotype, she became a metaphor for the new urban woman — independent, brave and determined to be her own person.
Tragically, the political class was unable to absorb this message. Two days after the rape, Parliament debated the issue in painfully illiberal language, with several MPs holding that the young woman had been scarred for life. Sushma Swaraj, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, lamented that rape victims could be counted “neither among the dead nor the living.” Further, she said, even if the young woman survived, she would live as a jeevit lash (living dead). Ironically, she was saying this of a woman who was still fighting to live.
Two recent developments have returned the focus to women’s safety, their freedoms and the moral-social rules by which they still appear to be judged despite their own monumental struggles to break free. The debate that has followed has not just exposed the doublespeak of political parties on women’s rights, it has brought out the stark gap between elite talk and practice when it comes to feminine rights and liberties.
The first of the two incidents concerns a young woman who was allegedly placed under surveillance for over a month in 2009 by the Gujarat government. The claim about the alleged surveillance was made by two web portals, Gulail and Cobrapost . They released audio recordings of alleged conversations between then Gujarat Minister of State for Home Amit Shah and then Superintendent of Police with the State’s Anti-Terrorism Squad, G.L. Singhal. The conversations suggested that a range of state investigative agencies had been deployed to closely monitor the girl’s movements and tap her phones.
The second incident relates to a complaint of sexual assault, since classified as rape, filed by a woman staff member of Tehelka against Tarun Tejpal, Editor-in-Chief and founder of the magazine.
Admittedly, in both cases the full details are still to be known. In the alleged rape case, the legal process has started. In the other case, the Gujarat government has set up a Commission of Inquiry, the legitimacy of which has been questioned by legal experts. Nonetheless, some things are prima facie evident in both cases. Also, disturbingly, both cases reveal that at a fundamental level attitudes towards women have not changed. A woman complaining of sexual assault must have ‘easy morals.’ On the other hand, it is fair game to treat a woman as family property and do with her as the family pleases.
Curiously, the news of the Gujarat inquiry commission came even as Bharatiya Janata Party spokespersons were stampeding to dismiss the need for a probe into the alleged surveillance. The BJP said it was a case of protection and not surveillance because the 2009 monitoring was preceded by an “oral” request made by the woman’s father to Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
The father had since made a “heart-rending” plea to be left alone, saying his daughter too was aware of the protection offered, the party said. It added: “Is it too much to ask that we respect the family?” The two cases are at once dissimilar and similar. In one instance, the alleged invasion was direct and physical. In the other, state actors allegedly monitored the private moments of a woman, who, notwithstanding the father’s letters, appears not to have known about it.
The physical intrusion, constituting rape, is manifestly more grave. But the absence of physical hurt surely cannot lessen the sense of revulsion any woman placed under intrusive surveillance must feel. A woman is as much body as she is mind and soul. Monitoring her private moments is an affront to her dignity and self-respect, and as much is evident from the recent inclusion of stalking among sexual crimes.
The reactions of the Congress and the BJP have been typically partisan in the two cases. The Congress fielded a powerful group of women functionaries to tear down the BJP’s defence of the ‘snooping’ case. They said the taped conversations produced by the web portals showed the woman had been ‘snooped upon’ and not protected. Yet, just a few days later, when the Tehelka case burst into the open, the same spokespersons held back their punches. Mr. Tejpal, who has been celebrated for his crusading journalism and advocacy of liberal feminism, went back on his own stated beliefs and values to defame the journalist who accused him of rape. His statement that she had “partied with elan” after the alleged rape constituted crude character assassination, not very different from the patriarchal judgments handed out in such cases. Indefensibly, Mr. Tejpal also tied the police case against him to his being a sharp critic of right-wing majoritarianism.
The Congress should have confronted this frontally. Not only was Mr. Tejpal playing by outmoded rules on how women ought to behave, he was also claiming to be witch-hunted for his liberal-secular beliefs. This is spurious logic and should discomfit all those with genuine secular-pluralist convictions, including the Congress. Bringing ideology into the case also carries the preposterous suggestion that the Tehelka staffer acted with political motives.
The BJP has been even more hypocritical. The party energetically batted for the Tehelka journalist, interpreting her complaint against Mr. Tejpal as a powerful blow for women’s rights. Party person Vijay Jolly, who defaced the walls of Tehelka managing-editor Shoma Chowdhury’s home, said he was protesting her failure to support the complainant. “I want women to find the courage to come out and complain,” he told a TV channel. In the surveillance case, the BJP has taken the opposite position, arguing that a woman’s family could decide what was good for her.
The BJP has tied itself in knots in the surveillance case — changing its stand from the tapes not being reliable to admitting that the woman was indeed monitored, even if only for her own good. It produced letters from the woman’s father to make the case that no probe was necessary since he and his daughter did not want one. Yet, the overwhelming concern for the father who had made a “heart-rending” appeal to be left alone disappeared once the Gujarat government set up a Commission of Inquiry. The position changed from respecting the family’s wishes to applauding the State government for having set up a probe.
Writing in the context of attempts made to monitor his call records, Arun Jaitley said on April 17, 2013: “His [the citizen’s] right to privacy is an inherent aspect of his personal liberty. Interference in the right to privacy is an interference in his personal liberty by a process which is not fair, just or reasonable… In the case of an average citizen it [monitoring] can reflect on his relationships…” (source: BJP website). Taking a conflicting position in the surveillance case, Mr. Jaitley said no case could be made for breach of privacy because the woman and her father had not complained.
Till today, the BJP has no answers as to why the entire state machinery was needed to protect the woman; why she needed to be protected even while in her own home; and why those protecting her were worried about her escaping their watch.
The BJP’s Nirmala Sitharaman took an even more regressive line on a TV programme. She said India was not a “progressive, left-wing country” where a “woman after [the age of] 18 will speak for herself.” Further, questioning the family’s right to intervene on a woman’s behalf amounted to “hitting at the very value system which we in India hold dear.” It probably did not occur to Ms. Sitharaman that her logic was fully in consonance with the justice system followed by the khap panchayats.
In yet another notable example, last week Union Minister Farooq Abdullah scored a 10 on 10 for insensitivity with his comment that he is scared to hire women as staff members lest he land up in jail.
The December 2012 Delhi gang rape released the collective emotions of India’s women. The legion of women who took courage from that brave girl deserve better than the hypocrisies on offer today.
(Email: vidya.s@thehindu.co.in)
The Congress and the BJP have taken hypocritical positions on the Tehelka sexual assault case and the alleged surveillance
of a woman by the Gujarat government
Woes of migrant labour
The widespread exploitation of migrant labourers in Qatar threatens to undermine whatever prestige the country may have earned by winning the right to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup. In September this year, the Guardian had shone light on the deplorable treatment of contract labourers — mostly from the Indian subcontinent — engaged in World Cup-related construction projects. Since then, Amnesty International has meticulously documented serial violations of Qatar’s labour laws by private contractors. Migrant workers from Nepal, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are at the mercy of their Qatari employers, thanks to the harsh systems in place to check illegal immigration. Qatar’s “sponsorship” law designates private contractors as the custodians of their employees’ travel documents until they are issued a valid residence permit. Many migrant labourers are yet to receive their passports back. What is more, Qatari law requires the “sponsor” to issue supporting documents for an “exit visa”. Without workers’ unions to represent their case, access to justice for foreign labourers remains elusive. Amnesty’s report suggested many of them were yet to receive their salaries. While the Qatar 2022 Supreme Committee, the nodal agency for World Cup affairs, has acknowledged these reports, the country needs to ensure that its economic growth does not ride on the inhuman treatment of migrants.
New Delhi would do well to express its concerns to Qatari officials about the plight of Indian labourers. For the most part, India has been restrained in its diplomatic overtures on labour-related issues in West Asia; this is not surprising since remittances from migrant labourers are the main source of income for hundreds of thousands of families back home. That New Delhi and Riyadh could coordinate their actions and successfully regularise the stay of most Indian labourers in Saudi Arabia ahead of the ‘Nitaqat’ deadline, however, suggests that such issues are eminently resolvable. India should consider its migrant workforce in West Asia as an asset rather than as a vulnerable constituency. Countries like Qatar and Saudi Arabia have sought to raise their profile by positioning themselves as global commercial hubs. In pursuit of this aim, they have invested considerably in infrastructure projects. Hosting the 2022 FIFA World Cup figures prominently in Qatar’s efforts to boost its marketability. Needless to say, Indian labour is very much in demand for the successful completion of these projects. The reports from the Guardian and Amnesty International serve as a reminder to West Asia that it cannot take migrant labour for granted. South Asian countries must insist their citizens are granted their rights and benefits as per international obligations.
