SUNDAY AFTERNOON DIARY JAN 3RD, 2010
Reviews:
Newspaper: Hindustan Times: Collumns : Vir Sanghvi & Khushwant Singh
Times Of India : Collumns: Swaminathan S Alankesaria Aiyar, MJ Akbar,
Swapan Dasgupta
TV News: NDTV 24x7 & DD News
Ruchika Suicide Case
Judiciary
Media trial
Progress by Bihar and other Bimaru states
Indo-Pak bon-homie, Kashmir, Corruption in Pakistan
Movie – 3 Idiots
We are a functional Democracy. Our police, administrative system, judiciary will be as good as our people. If we elect bad/corrupt/criminal people and send them to Law Making Bodies Parliament and State Legislature, how can we expect justice? We will get Bad Judges, Bad prosecution, Bad Lawyers, Bad IAS officers, Bad Police Officers and Investigating Officers, Bad Police- sp on and so forth. In fact it is interesting to know that not only corrupt and criminals are getting elected every year, people go and vote along Caste/Community/Religion/Regional lines is such a way that they elect criminals from their Castes/Community/Religion/Regional so that they can be protected by the terror of the people from other Castes/Community/Religion/Regional. Who looks after the track record of which person is corrupt or who is educated, or who is capable? The result, they elect the same set of people again and again every years, and anyway, India was ruled by foreigners for years and we like being ruled so Royal families and Political families are always elected year after year (after all they are the ones who actually know how to govern!). Not to mention luring and intimidating voters on the voting day with A Rs 100 note, a saree, a bottle of country liquor, a film show, a joy ride, a vacation, a holiday- are better no need to be discussed! The matter has been further compounded by a plethora of parties and growth of regional and personality based parties. How long will media take up the case and run the show to its conclusion. After all media is not a tool of giving justice, at most it can give prominence in any case so that proper investigation and importance be given to a particular case and that also only limited to main cities , but what about the interiors of villages where 70% India lives? How many Ruchikas or Jessikas come up in the limelight? Who takes up the matter apart from the victims family and that too only if the family is well to do and has the courage and capacity to fight it long to take on the higher-ups in the society (See what happened to Shibu Soren whose case is still coming up in Supreme Court in march involving the murder of his ex PA Mr Shashinath Jha. No one is taking up the matter even for one show now, the reason that this is an old case. even I get the answer that this is useless to raise the Shibu Soren case now as the matter is old, from Jharkhand, not major city and does not revoke the king of sympathy it once generated. The result, he is becomes the Chief Minister of Jharkhand, the state which has just come of the Madhu Koda’s corrupt regime. And on top of it Soren is being aided by BJP, the party which claims to me clean party with committed workers working selflessly for their whole liefetime! All in the name of political expediency and just because the state was in danger of President rule or because the MLAs were being subjected to sale-purchase!
At most Media can raise the issue to the level that its taken seriously and the trial does take sincerely. But the sad part is that its only the individual matters that it takes up is affected positively. And that also if the media does some serious investigative journalism (which it does in some cases, but in most of the cases its simply very mediocre in research) and provide or rather assist the process of investigation, it can do that much only and not more that this should be expected out of media because media does not have the resources or the competency or power or authorized to give judgment. Its ultimately the courts of India to decide or pass judgment. For all other matters these once-in-a-blue -moon cases does not instill enough fear on erring officers to deter them from repeating the same practices again and again and so for all the other matters the same problems of judiciary recurs. In the case of villages most of the matters especially related to women don’t even come up. Why will they come up? Who will defend the girl? Who has the courage to fight the system? The poor girl is left to her family to defend her, if her family wants, as in most of the cases the family itself wants that the girl be sent to remote place where no one knows her and is married off and the matter is “settled” in that stage itself. In majority of the cases the family is left alone to defend itself, no one comes to its aid, their friends, officers, any politician or any NGO.
Who has the money to fight the case so long say 19 years. And even if she fights the case what is the guarantee that he or she will get justice. I was aghast today to find from the words of former CBI chief Mr Joginder Singh who cited the findings of a study that says that considering the pace of disposal cases in judiciary in India it will take 466 years to clear the backlog. So leave alone proper investigation and adjudication even opening and closing the file is enough for any matter to get delayed. How can we expect speedy judgement? Case disposal has to be fast not only for women related matters but also other corruption related matters too so that it gets the message to the men in position that you cannot play with the system as long a you want and you could be put behind bars. Only then we can expect fear among people. Say like in present Ruchika case if you take back the clock to 19 years and take up this as a case study and investigate each and every people involved in this matter right from the ministers, Chief Ministers, politicians, Babus and Police officers, to principals, to doctors, to policemen to teachers and subject them to rigorous investigation and bring forward the fault of each and every person who aided in subverting justice.
In actual practice when the cases come up, the matter is not investigated properly by police or investigating officers in collecting proper proofs or evidences to expect any justice from the court. For proper justice the Prosecution should stand up and see that the client gets justice, the other party is not deliberately resorting to dilatory tactics, presenting false witnesses, intimidating genuine witnesses, see that genuine witness come in time, etc, etc. But how it can do? In how many cases the prosecution Lawyer is a learned man or is taken seriously? In most of the courts in India only the laggards and less qualified people are appointed as public prosecutors as it is considered unglamorous. (We should thank M N Singh, then Police Chief of Mumbai for at least getting Advocate Ujjwal Nikam from far-off Sholapur and getting him as Public Prosecutor in Bombay High Court, but this is a rare event). In many cases since the fight is between lawyers, the lawyers of both the parties themselves collaborate and let the cases run for years. In some cases the judges are corrupted to let the cases delay for years. So even if you have fast courts or getting any complaint registered as an FIR or FIRs registered by emails whether the process of prosecution or investigation or fair trial or fair justice would be expected to be delivered fast or not, that should be better left to time. Lets hope for the better.
People should come up and assert demand. There are tools available in the judiciary systems as well as RTI to question any officer or any decision. Actually we are the country of cowards and too much tolerance level. (The only exception comes when the politicians create and mob situation for any matter of Caste/Community /Religion/ Regional or we catch a petty thief and the mob lynches it or when the trains, buses or airlines are running late - we use all our resources in hand to destroy public property or burn buses or use lathis in injuring and killing people). Our Chalta Hai attitude creates all sorts of problems. We take for granted any lapses in law and order or any problem related to harassment or region or language and and let the transgression go till it reaches out of hand and creates crisis. Be it Naxalism, Terrorism, a Bhindrawale, a Raj Thakre, Gujjar movement in Rajasthan, Telangana, Gorkhaland, Kashmir to name a few phenomenons. Lets be an awakened and empowered society. Not let any injustice be done to anyone and develop our ability to question any injustice and fight for our rights. Lets be Indian first.
One surprisingly positive news was about performance of Bihar 11.03% growth rate. Credit goes to the Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. Bihar has dubious distinction of being the only state which did not get a worthy Chief minister after 1st Chief Minister, Sri Krishna Singh (Bhagwat Jha Azad was only for a brief period and was booted out soon). Just see the potential of Bihar. One Chief minister’ regime has made it possible in 3 -4 years. Imagine the development if we had got worthy Chief ministers in past 60 years! Biharis always had the ability, it was only that they displayed it in other states or out of India. Cheer Up. Just with its sheer weightage in its contribution to the overall GDP of India has risen up dramatically in India and I think it will be the development of the BIMARU states(Bihar, MP, Rajasthan & UP) + Orissa along with Gujarat will ensure that India has a decent growth rate of 8% going forward.
Now comes the Indo Pak matter. M J Akbar is right in providing his version of the historical perspective of the problem of Kashmir and need for it to be resolved but he did not give solution. I too think there is no solution as of now. But honest efforts should be attempted to resolve the dispute. As far as my limited thinking goes let me venture out and draw a path to the resolution of Kashmir issue, as a common man. I see the only way to start finding the solution is that first both the parties have to seriously think whether they want to solve the problem or not and continue with the current position of not letting and inch go from their stated position. Because it needs strong and farsighted decision and some sort of compromise is needed which has to be approved by people from all three apparent players in the issue: India, Pakistan and Kashmiris. If not then it has to be understood there can only be war, whether full fledged or semi warlike or tension of an imminent war every time, and war is not the solution. Gone are the days when any country defeated another neighboring country and especially when both are Nuclear capable as the world will not let it happen and it will not be beneficial to any party involved either. So once it is decide that the solution has to be found out then talks should be organized between all the parties where the premises has to be decided, boundaries created and tried to find out till which position the other party is willing to go. Once this is done by all the parties then they should go to their respective camps and take some time to debate and decide on the possible position to be put forward in the next meeting. The parties should then meet again with their new positions. Here they must chalk out the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).Once the MOU is prepared the matter should be debated threadbare in Parliament or Law making bodies of all three affected parties and get it ratified. Then again final meeting of all the parties should be organized to sort out the differences and concerns arising out of the debate in their respective countries and tried to further fine-tune the MOU to suit all the parties. Once that is done, all three heads should come and sign the deal at a commonly decided place. After that the only way is to move forward and implement all the solutions as per the terms and conditions mentioned in the MOU and the efforts started to loosening the tensions between boundaries of both countries. Once tensions are reduced then only next time you will have to decide how much flexible you can be with regards to sports visa, writers and artists visa, or other Sanjhauta Express type of trains or bus service between both the countries to inculcate a sense of confidence in all the parties among themselves and once that is done then only we can think of free pass between all three states like India Nepal or a porous interstate border like EU and later on experiment with EU type of currency and later on include Nepal, Sri Lanka , Bhutan or any country which wants to come in. Then the Bon-homie which is talked about should be promoted in a big way. Meanwhile this bon-homie type of things should go on but don’t expect much from these meeting and exchanges as our experience says it only lasts for a few months or years and then an unfortunate incident happens which negates all the good work done in building bridges and we are back to square one. This will take time and all the process should not necessarily follow the same sequence. This is not to say that its not being attempted right now. I think back channel negotiations is going on but since its not getting desired results people are losing their patience and India is meanwhile burning with terror strikes.
Pakistan leaders are all corrupt like our present day politicians, because they are our people only and corruption as a subject will be presented by me later on.
Meanwhile new year has come and I wish all a very happy, prosperous, disease free 2010. This year is crucial for India, as in this year we have to complete the backlog of all achievements which was meant to be achieved in this decade so that we finish it off with the what its truly an Indian decade. I think we can do it. Everyone has to rise above what he or she can do best and contribute to the growth of the country in whatever best way its possible.
Mr Vir Sanghvi has rightly pointed out that the grace which was deserved for Chetan Bhagat was all that was needed from Bollywood’s Vidhu Vinod Chopra for Aamir starrer "3 idiots", like the way credit which is deservedly given by their Hollywood counterparts to the contributors in the success of any film. That’s all. Chetan Bhagat is a celebrity writer and has seen enough fame, and money and presently too he is a media darling. After all if a film is a success everyone should make money. What would have cost the producers of “3 idiots” if Chetan demended his name in the starting sequences of the film rather than in the end of rolling titles? Be a large hearted Punjabi Man Vidhu!
“3 Idiots” came as a big surprise packet and whatever accusations may be hauled on the success of the film, comments by any columnists or media won’t affect the success of this film if people are loving it. What is wrong in doing what you can do best? What is wrong is challenging conventions? What is wrong in saying that the present education system is bad in India and creating a pool of unemployables? Its better we catch up the student when he or she is young and then train them early in the field which is best for him. But till then we have to see that he or she understands what is right or wrong choice and it’s the parents who cannot shun their responsibility and find out what is best career path for their child as per his or her talent and the available career avenues in the market. Till them this type of challenges to the systems will take place and these films with certain message will be succeed.
Reviews:
Newspaper: Hindustan Times: Collumns : Vir Sanghvi & Khushwant Singh
Times Of India : Collumns: Swaminathan S Alankesaria Aiyar, MJ Akbar,
Swapan Dasgupta
TV News: NDTV 24x7 & DD News
Ruchika Suicide Case
Judiciary
Media trial
Progress by Bihar and other Bimaru states
Indo-Pak bon-homie, Kashmir, Corruption in Pakistan
Movie – 3 Idiots
We are a functional Democracy. Our police, administrative system, judiciary will be as good as our people. If we elect bad/corrupt/criminal people and send them to Law Making Bodies Parliament and State Legislature, how can we expect justice? We will get Bad Judges, Bad prosecution, Bad Lawyers, Bad IAS officers, Bad Police Officers and Investigating Officers, Bad Police- sp on and so forth. In fact it is interesting to know that not only corrupt and criminals are getting elected every year, people go and vote along Caste/Community/Religion/Regional lines is such a way that they elect criminals from their Castes/Community/Religion/Regional so that they can be protected by the terror of the people from other Castes/Community/Religion/Regional. Who looks after the track record of which person is corrupt or who is educated, or who is capable? The result, they elect the same set of people again and again every years, and anyway, India was ruled by foreigners for years and we like being ruled so Royal families and Political families are always elected year after year (after all they are the ones who actually know how to govern!). Not to mention luring and intimidating voters on the voting day with A Rs 100 note, a saree, a bottle of country liquor, a film show, a joy ride, a vacation, a holiday- are better no need to be discussed! The matter has been further compounded by a plethora of parties and growth of regional and personality based parties. How long will media take up the case and run the show to its conclusion. After all media is not a tool of giving justice, at most it can give prominence in any case so that proper investigation and importance be given to a particular case and that also only limited to main cities , but what about the interiors of villages where 70% India lives? How many Ruchikas or Jessikas come up in the limelight? Who takes up the matter apart from the victims family and that too only if the family is well to do and has the courage and capacity to fight it long to take on the higher-ups in the society (See what happened to Shibu Soren whose case is still coming up in Supreme Court in march involving the murder of his ex PA Mr Shashinath Jha. No one is taking up the matter even for one show now, the reason that this is an old case. even I get the answer that this is useless to raise the Shibu Soren case now as the matter is old, from Jharkhand, not major city and does not revoke the king of sympathy it once generated. The result, he is becomes the Chief Minister of Jharkhand, the state which has just come of the Madhu Koda’s corrupt regime. And on top of it Soren is being aided by BJP, the party which claims to me clean party with committed workers working selflessly for their whole liefetime! All in the name of political expediency and just because the state was in danger of President rule or because the MLAs were being subjected to sale-purchase!
At most Media can raise the issue to the level that its taken seriously and the trial does take sincerely. But the sad part is that its only the individual matters that it takes up is affected positively. And that also if the media does some serious investigative journalism (which it does in some cases, but in most of the cases its simply very mediocre in research) and provide or rather assist the process of investigation, it can do that much only and not more that this should be expected out of media because media does not have the resources or the competency or power or authorized to give judgment. Its ultimately the courts of India to decide or pass judgment. For all other matters these once-in-a-blue -moon cases does not instill enough fear on erring officers to deter them from repeating the same practices again and again and so for all the other matters the same problems of judiciary recurs. In the case of villages most of the matters especially related to women don’t even come up. Why will they come up? Who will defend the girl? Who has the courage to fight the system? The poor girl is left to her family to defend her, if her family wants, as in most of the cases the family itself wants that the girl be sent to remote place where no one knows her and is married off and the matter is “settled” in that stage itself. In majority of the cases the family is left alone to defend itself, no one comes to its aid, their friends, officers, any politician or any NGO.
Who has the money to fight the case so long say 19 years. And even if she fights the case what is the guarantee that he or she will get justice. I was aghast today to find from the words of former CBI chief Mr Joginder Singh who cited the findings of a study that says that considering the pace of disposal cases in judiciary in India it will take 466 years to clear the backlog. So leave alone proper investigation and adjudication even opening and closing the file is enough for any matter to get delayed. How can we expect speedy judgement? Case disposal has to be fast not only for women related matters but also other corruption related matters too so that it gets the message to the men in position that you cannot play with the system as long a you want and you could be put behind bars. Only then we can expect fear among people. Say like in present Ruchika case if you take back the clock to 19 years and take up this as a case study and investigate each and every people involved in this matter right from the ministers, Chief Ministers, politicians, Babus and Police officers, to principals, to doctors, to policemen to teachers and subject them to rigorous investigation and bring forward the fault of each and every person who aided in subverting justice.
In actual practice when the cases come up, the matter is not investigated properly by police or investigating officers in collecting proper proofs or evidences to expect any justice from the court. For proper justice the Prosecution should stand up and see that the client gets justice, the other party is not deliberately resorting to dilatory tactics, presenting false witnesses, intimidating genuine witnesses, see that genuine witness come in time, etc, etc. But how it can do? In how many cases the prosecution Lawyer is a learned man or is taken seriously? In most of the courts in India only the laggards and less qualified people are appointed as public prosecutors as it is considered unglamorous. (We should thank M N Singh, then Police Chief of Mumbai for at least getting Advocate Ujjwal Nikam from far-off Sholapur and getting him as Public Prosecutor in Bombay High Court, but this is a rare event). In many cases since the fight is between lawyers, the lawyers of both the parties themselves collaborate and let the cases run for years. In some cases the judges are corrupted to let the cases delay for years. So even if you have fast courts or getting any complaint registered as an FIR or FIRs registered by emails whether the process of prosecution or investigation or fair trial or fair justice would be expected to be delivered fast or not, that should be better left to time. Lets hope for the better.
People should come up and assert demand. There are tools available in the judiciary systems as well as RTI to question any officer or any decision. Actually we are the country of cowards and too much tolerance level. (The only exception comes when the politicians create and mob situation for any matter of Caste/Community /Religion/ Regional or we catch a petty thief and the mob lynches it or when the trains, buses or airlines are running late - we use all our resources in hand to destroy public property or burn buses or use lathis in injuring and killing people). Our Chalta Hai attitude creates all sorts of problems. We take for granted any lapses in law and order or any problem related to harassment or region or language and and let the transgression go till it reaches out of hand and creates crisis. Be it Naxalism, Terrorism, a Bhindrawale, a Raj Thakre, Gujjar movement in Rajasthan, Telangana, Gorkhaland, Kashmir to name a few phenomenons. Lets be an awakened and empowered society. Not let any injustice be done to anyone and develop our ability to question any injustice and fight for our rights. Lets be Indian first.
One surprisingly positive news was about performance of Bihar 11.03% growth rate. Credit goes to the Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. Bihar has dubious distinction of being the only state which did not get a worthy Chief minister after 1st Chief Minister, Sri Krishna Singh (Bhagwat Jha Azad was only for a brief period and was booted out soon). Just see the potential of Bihar. One Chief minister’ regime has made it possible in 3 -4 years. Imagine the development if we had got worthy Chief ministers in past 60 years! Biharis always had the ability, it was only that they displayed it in other states or out of India. Cheer Up. Just with its sheer weightage in its contribution to the overall GDP of India has risen up dramatically in India and I think it will be the development of the BIMARU states(Bihar, MP, Rajasthan & UP) + Orissa along with Gujarat will ensure that India has a decent growth rate of 8% going forward.
Now comes the Indo Pak matter. M J Akbar is right in providing his version of the historical perspective of the problem of Kashmir and need for it to be resolved but he did not give solution. I too think there is no solution as of now. But honest efforts should be attempted to resolve the dispute. As far as my limited thinking goes let me venture out and draw a path to the resolution of Kashmir issue, as a common man. I see the only way to start finding the solution is that first both the parties have to seriously think whether they want to solve the problem or not and continue with the current position of not letting and inch go from their stated position. Because it needs strong and farsighted decision and some sort of compromise is needed which has to be approved by people from all three apparent players in the issue: India, Pakistan and Kashmiris. If not then it has to be understood there can only be war, whether full fledged or semi warlike or tension of an imminent war every time, and war is not the solution. Gone are the days when any country defeated another neighboring country and especially when both are Nuclear capable as the world will not let it happen and it will not be beneficial to any party involved either. So once it is decide that the solution has to be found out then talks should be organized between all the parties where the premises has to be decided, boundaries created and tried to find out till which position the other party is willing to go. Once this is done by all the parties then they should go to their respective camps and take some time to debate and decide on the possible position to be put forward in the next meeting. The parties should then meet again with their new positions. Here they must chalk out the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).Once the MOU is prepared the matter should be debated threadbare in Parliament or Law making bodies of all three affected parties and get it ratified. Then again final meeting of all the parties should be organized to sort out the differences and concerns arising out of the debate in their respective countries and tried to further fine-tune the MOU to suit all the parties. Once that is done, all three heads should come and sign the deal at a commonly decided place. After that the only way is to move forward and implement all the solutions as per the terms and conditions mentioned in the MOU and the efforts started to loosening the tensions between boundaries of both countries. Once tensions are reduced then only next time you will have to decide how much flexible you can be with regards to sports visa, writers and artists visa, or other Sanjhauta Express type of trains or bus service between both the countries to inculcate a sense of confidence in all the parties among themselves and once that is done then only we can think of free pass between all three states like India Nepal or a porous interstate border like EU and later on experiment with EU type of currency and later on include Nepal, Sri Lanka , Bhutan or any country which wants to come in. Then the Bon-homie which is talked about should be promoted in a big way. Meanwhile this bon-homie type of things should go on but don’t expect much from these meeting and exchanges as our experience says it only lasts for a few months or years and then an unfortunate incident happens which negates all the good work done in building bridges and we are back to square one. This will take time and all the process should not necessarily follow the same sequence. This is not to say that its not being attempted right now. I think back channel negotiations is going on but since its not getting desired results people are losing their patience and India is meanwhile burning with terror strikes.
Pakistan leaders are all corrupt like our present day politicians, because they are our people only and corruption as a subject will be presented by me later on.
Meanwhile new year has come and I wish all a very happy, prosperous, disease free 2010. This year is crucial for India, as in this year we have to complete the backlog of all achievements which was meant to be achieved in this decade so that we finish it off with the what its truly an Indian decade. I think we can do it. Everyone has to rise above what he or she can do best and contribute to the growth of the country in whatever best way its possible.
Mr Vir Sanghvi has rightly pointed out that the grace which was deserved for Chetan Bhagat was all that was needed from Bollywood’s Vidhu Vinod Chopra for Aamir starrer "3 idiots", like the way credit which is deservedly given by their Hollywood counterparts to the contributors in the success of any film. That’s all. Chetan Bhagat is a celebrity writer and has seen enough fame, and money and presently too he is a media darling. After all if a film is a success everyone should make money. What would have cost the producers of “3 idiots” if Chetan demended his name in the starting sequences of the film rather than in the end of rolling titles? Be a large hearted Punjabi Man Vidhu!
“3 Idiots” came as a big surprise packet and whatever accusations may be hauled on the success of the film, comments by any columnists or media won’t affect the success of this film if people are loving it. What is wrong in doing what you can do best? What is wrong is challenging conventions? What is wrong in saying that the present education system is bad in India and creating a pool of unemployables? Its better we catch up the student when he or she is young and then train them early in the field which is best for him. But till then we have to see that he or she understands what is right or wrong choice and it’s the parents who cannot shun their responsibility and find out what is best career path for their child as per his or her talent and the available career avenues in the market. Till them this type of challenges to the systems will take place and these films with certain message will be succeed.
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