Saturday, November 23, 2013

Secularism & Pseudo-secularism


English language could do with a new word/term -
Psecularism, n. Political Science meaning
1. pseudo-secularism,
2. pretense at being secular to garner votes from minority community/-ties;
3. redefining secularism according to political convenience
etc.

Monday, October 28, 2013

The Politics of Compensating


Stampede related deaths are common place during pilgrimage all over the world. No amount of administrative measures for safety of pilgrims can be enough.

Recently, there was an incident in Bihar where pilgrims got killed because of their own fatal carelessness. They were crossing railway tracks without checking if some train was approaching and got killed by a passing Express train. The surprised driver did apply breaks but the damage was already done by the time train came to a halt.

Many people were killed and many more injured. The District Administration was rendered 'helpless' due to floods in that area.

What followed the 'accident' was a complete mayhem - corpses, piles of injured and a crowd of rogues that went on attacking the locomotive staff, the train and the innocent passengers. The scenario for the passengers was horrifying - they had no clue why they were being attacked! They could not run - there wasn't any 'anywhere' to run to - the Geography of the area inundated by floods was unknown to them. 

And what was the composition of the crowd - largely pilgrims and surviving companions/relatives of the pilgrims and other locals. 

The crowd kept terrorising passengers for many hours - till the Administration arrived. 

But, the most mind-boggling and preposterous step was by the Bihar State - it announced compensation to the surviving companions/relatives of the dead & injured - the very people who caused the 'accident' and terrorised the innocent passengers of the train and destroyed State/Railway property!

Monday, July 29, 2013

Video Archives on Indian Media Web sites - A Waste of Space

I wanted to watch http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/the-buck-stops-here/the-secularism-debate-just-a-media-fixation/284320 episode of Barkha Dutt's 'The Buck Stops Here'. 

I had missed the LIVE show, so I went to NDTV website to get the episode.

To my utter surprise I found that I cannot download the video as the video is streamed via some RMTP method. Googling RMTP tells that this kind of streaming is available only for online viewing, in other words, making it impossible to download any video to watch later.

There is another flaw in this system - if I get disconnected for any of the various factors - power interruptions, internet connection dropping out, etc which are routine - the video play starts from the very beginning!

After several failed attempts, I dropped the idea of watching the show. 
Earlier, I used to watch many shows offline from www.ndtv.com as they could be saved.

The fun is over.


Why do  websites have video archives if visitors cannot save them to watch later?
How many watch their archives LIVE/online? 

News channels could save wearing out their servers by removing videos.

If the Organisations running these News Channels believe they can force viewers to watch their LIVE programs or make them watch them online, they are in for some surprises. 

None would visit their website and spend time on watching interrupted videos.
BECAUSE, the visitors are either critics or people who like the shows.

Monday, July 15, 2013

The taar (telegraph) has 'retired' permanently from our lives today. The news brought an incident to my mind from the past

As a boy in mid-teens, I stood for my turn to collect mail at a P&T Office (Daakghar) in a remote place. People had to collect their mail from Post Office as their was no Daakiya (postman) to deliver it.

A telegram from Bombay (in1966 it was) was delivered to a man in 50s who couldn't read and didn't understand English. The clerk at the window, who as a rule read out telegraphic messages to almost all the people, didn't help and told him "I'm too busy, please take help from someone else". 

He showed it to 3 other people. They glanced at it then politely declined to translate for him saying "sorry, I don't know English."

Then he approached me for help.

I read & asked him 'Who is so-and-so in Bombay?" 

He replied, "My son".

I told him the message which was from the Police and which went like this - 

[name] EXPIRED AFTER ROOF FELL ON HIM STOP START IMMEDIATELY

(In telegrams, STOP means end of sentence)

The man went down on his knees and collapsed on the ground crying bitterly.

All the people who didn't help him with the translation rushed towards him - supporting him in their firm grip, holding him close to their chest and consoling him, speaking soothing words softly in his ears.

I felt kinda guilty! 

I still don't know how to announce death to someone without causing the ensuing hurt.

Thursday, June 13, 2013

The Power of A Woman's Words

A recent Bombay High Court ruling prompts me to narrate an incident that took place sometime in early 1980s. 

Note: The HC has held that in cases of outraging modesty of women, the evidence tendered by the victim should be sufficient to nail the accused and it was not necessary to seek corroboration.
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/outraging-modesty-of-women-victims-version-enough-to-nail-accused-says-hc/1128551

The incident relates to a burn victim, a woman in her late 40s who was brought to the hospital by Police with 90% burns and who was screaming out of pain and agony she was going through. 

The lone cop was on guard so that nobody approached her -  especially, none of her family members, till arrival of Magistrate who'd take down her statement.

Victim's devar (husband's younger brother) and his wife were upset and moving restlessly in utter hopelessness - fearing that the victim might implicate them falsely to settle some old score. 
The cop ignored all their pleas to have "one word" with bhaabhii (sister-in-law).

Then they requested me for help and I asked the cop if they could talk to her from the window of the Burn Ward. The cop agreed and said in typical movie style, "Just 2 minutes and no more".

They both pleaded her not to use this incident to settle any score and begged for forgiveness for all their "sins".

The woman first refused not to blame them but later conceded and said, "OK, I'll not blame you on one condition?" 

Perplexed, the man asked "What condition?"

"Only if you give me water to drink", she said. 
(Note: A burn victim can't be given water.)

The man told her of his inability to comply. That sent woman into a rage and she cursed him and his wife and told him to nail him when the Magistrate arrived.

However, she blamed nobody before the Magistrate and stated that she got burnt accidentally and that she now wants water!


Saturday, April 20, 2013

Political Alliances: Life & Credibility

I'm prompted by an article Political allies must make the best deal they can before the Govt is formed in The Hindustan Times here http://www.hindustantimes.com/editorial-views-on/Chanakya/Objections-Speak-up-now/Article1-1047833.aspx

LEFT FRONT

The best and the most credible political Alliance in independent India is the Left-Front.
Howsoever anti-Communism political pundits may try to contest the assertion, fact remains that Left-Front, from the very outset, is the most mature, stable and consistent Political Alliance even to date.
Ideologically, it has been a non-Congress, but not exactly anti-Congress entity till pro-Capitalism and local landlords' lobby took over complete control of Congress under the name of New Economic Policy or, as euphemistically called Manmohonics.
This is also the moment in time from which Indian politicians following ideology of Marxism/Communism/Socialism stopped being contemporary.


Alliances of Anti-ism

All other political alliances SVD, "Janata Party" of post-Emergency times, etc were formed on more on Anti-ism than for any national or public good. And, they all died except for NDA led by Bharatiya JanaSangh (JS)under its new avatar Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) under a soft-administrator Shri Atal Bihari Vaajpayee. 

NDA

The NDA has survived as it has no political ideology or agenda, it survives on negative ideology of Anti-ism and positive (?) ideology of appeasement of partners. Its leader/s cannot prevail over its regional partners. In fact, it is better to say BJP doesn't lead NDA partners but is led by its regional partners. Unlike Congress that leads UPA.


UPA

UPA-1 was formed on solid CMM Common Minimum Programme  - an example of political maturity of Left Front. It fell victim to political immaturity born out of arrogance of Congress leaders. The Prime Minister, Dr Man Mohan Singh failed to convince and win over Left Front partners over Nuclear Deal.
It was a bad day for the country and the people - for, interests of the large segment of Indians became redundant under the Manmohonics.

UPA-2 is an example of crass opportunism. Its entire tenure is marred by gagging popular voices (Anna Hazare movement for Janlokpal), disrupted sessions of Parliament, cases of Scams & Corruption running into mind-boggling sums of billions of Rupees and, most importantly, Congress' favourite - attacking Constitutional bodies, the CAG!
Abuse of CBI became almost proven but all other alliances have abused and misused CBI. Hence, UPA alone is not the only culprit.
(Inconclusive)

Friday, April 19, 2013

Police Reforms

The present character of Police, in India, is of a Force under control of a Supercop who is not accountable to the people but to his/her political boss. The police uses brute physical and psychological force to intimidate, control and attack people with complete immunity to its actions and consequences thereof under the law.

This Police Force was designed by and suited the British for whom people were subjects/slaves and not free citizens.

This lumpen character of Police Force - totally unacceptable in an Independent India - was recognized by eminent jurists, cops themselves, citizens' rights groups and also a section of political class.

The history of events led to formation of various committees/commissions to suggest ways to change this scenario to make Police aware of its role of Service-to-the-People and not of Servants of Political bosses.

Once the Reforms are in place, the Cop-In-Charge can be made accountable for actions of his Dept and staff and brought to justice. In the present set-up,  no one is accountable and suspension, sent-to-police-lines is all that a cop receives by way of punishment.

Since the Law-and-Order is a State Subject under the Constitution,  the Union Govt cannot enforce Police Reforms. Hence, the Hon'ble Supreme Court asked States to implement Police Reforms specific to their own State.

On the face of it, it seemed natural that the States will introduce Police Reforms, but, that's the point where politicisation of the whole matter led to chaos. Politicians will have none of it, they won't let this symbol of VVIP Status go to people.

Hence, it is the political class, and not the Law, not the Courts, not the Constitution and not the Cops themselves but, the political class that is blocking the introduction and implementation of Police Reforms.

The brutalities of police cannot be dealt with effectively without the requisite reforms, the training of cops and accountability by the Supercop of the State.

Till it is done, there is no end, in sight, to Police brutalities as witness in past 18-months as exposed by visual and print media.

TV debates on sensitive matters like sensitization of cops show such crass insensitivity by panellists (and anchors of the show) who use their lung power to score brownie points.

Some anchors believe they have the last word on the topic and interrupt the wisest panellist midway through his/her viewpoint on the pretext "Let us have the other perspective..".

Can "Other perspective" to Police brutality be anything but articulated justification of the brutality itself?
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