Daily Excelsior... Editorial

EDITORIAL

Pakistan: Warnings
of Disintegration

K.N. Pandita
Internal turmoil in Pakistan is intensifying. The government is faced with a widespread backlash of its Afghan policy. A dozen towns in the country have ....more

Can India avert clash
of civilisations?

By Balraj Puri
As, the cold war between the Taliban and the anti-terrorism coalition turns into the first hot war of the 21st Century....more

School Edcucation in J&K

By Arpit Kumar
Notwithstanding what the Government officials say the health of Education in general and that School Education is .....more

Better safe than sorroy

By Aarti
The ghastly plane crash of September 30 that killed senior Congress leader Mr. Madhavrao Scindia, his.......more

EDITORIAL

Pounding Terrorism

After four weeks of intense preparations and campaigning. America has begun pounding the terrorism that is at large in Afghanistan. The carpet-bombing shall continue for about a week. The bombing has by any measure been intense. It is calculated to raze everything in its sweep. The major effect would be to cripple the radar and what little avionics the Afghans possess. It may also floor a stray building here or there, but largely would not make much of a difference to the landscape. The Taliban, thorough destructors that they are, have already seen to it that the country, which had soon much destruction during the resistance movement to Soviet occupation forces, is well nigh in the Stone Age. Houses are already rubble; schools, hospitals and other civil buildings stand well destroyed. Afghanistan today is a country that would be easily recognized by the medieval invaders who came down its passes to inundate the Indian plains. The huts and caves the mule carts they were familiar with would greet them everywhere. They may miss the majestic Bamiyan Buddhas and be puzzled by a rusting chassis or a broken bridge but over all it would be a kindred country they can easily see as their own. Taliban and their terrorist guests are reported to have laid network of tunnels, but apart from those holes there is practically nothing that would be leveled now.

Save of course, the evil spirits of terrorists, which deserve to be pounded as hard, as thoroughly as possible. And there are enough of them there. One report says that, over the last few years, as many as seventy thousand terrorists have received training in terror tactics in the camps in Afghanistan. And, fanned out into the world. These recruits are from a number of countries. A report, some time back, said that nearly a thousand young men from Great Britain itself have been trained in the Pak and bin Laden camps during the past year alone. That is a measure of how widespread the menace and its manacles are. The terrorists that get trained in the Afghan camps are the elite of the tribe. They are core-men who either undertake hard tasks like the WTC bombing; else, they have established other camps and spawned more broods. These are the other countries and camps America speaks of to be targeted in the second phase of the 'war on terrorism'. The camps and the countries in which they are located are spread over many continents and some may actually be within the American continent itself. Of course, it does not include Pakistan, for Pakistan, as the foreign minister Jaswant Singh said the other day, is the 'epidemic of terrorism': it is not influenced by bin Laden, it influences bin Laden, It, in fact, props more bin Ladens than can be kept count of.

Possibly a day of reckoning for that network of terror has arrived. America is not the only country infested with terrorism. It actually is only the latest one to feel how devastating terrorism can be. Other countries have been suffering from their depredations for years, even decades. They have all been constrained by the refusal of the world leaders, meaning the western countries especially America, to see terrorism for the evil it was, is and has been. Now ways for these countries to take on terrorism have been opened. Supplemented with an American thrust against terrorism, that 'clearance' should see the countries taking decisive measures to banish the menace of terror from the earth once for all. The world cannot tolerate terrorism and the countries pestered by terrorism must not waste effort in futile posturing. America may be a world leader, a world policeman too, but it is a soldier unto itself alone. Others would have to open their own fronts against terrorism. The nations of the world who propose to eradicate terrorism must come into the open and act. They must get active within their boundaries at least, if not at the terror-spewing centers outside. The war on terrorism is neither an American obligation nor its privilege. America would pummel its terrorists alright, but other nations must pound their own terrorisms. And rid the world of this threat to peace, progress and civilization.

Private teachers

Education is one of the sectors that saw a phenomenal growth in the post-liberalisation era. There has also been a burgeoning of private hospitals and medical research centers ' too, over the past decade of reforms but the private schools, called public schools in a strange twist of phrase, easily take the cake. They, unlike the hospitals, are spreading out of the urban areas too and giving the government schools a good run for their money. There cannot be a greater indictment of the education system of the state than the fact that people in cities as well as villages are flocking to the private schools and paying through their nose when education in the government schools is actually free. They not only have enviable facilities in buildings, laboratories, space etc. but also have much, much better qualified staff. Yet they have failed to stem the run to the private academies. The worst thing however, is that the private 'academies', welcome though they are, are not the ideal work places. They, in fact, leave a lot to be desired.

The most glaring of these deficiencies is the exploitation of the teachers by the owners/'principals/directors.' The educated unemployed hankering after a livelihood fall easy prey. And are ruthlessly exploited. There may be a school here, an 'academy' there, that pays a decent wage, but by and large the trained schoolteachers suffer a fate that would be pitied by the unskilled labourer in the market. Whereas the going rate from the labour is seventy to eighty rupees per day it would be a rare teacher in a well established school as is lucky enough to get half of that per diem pay. Most get just a third of what they pay to the daily wage labourer at their own homes. What is even more horrifying is that the educated, conscientious teacher is not even able to protest, for the fear that he/she may easily be shown the door. Many of the private teachers work as virtual bonded labourers. A majority of them being women simply cower as the owner/administrator of the school plays dictator on the premises, even out of it. Definitely all directors are not despots, nor all the private schools hotbeds of exploitation; but there are many out there whose ways are despicable and need good mending.

Pakistan: Warnings of Disintegration

K.N. Pandita

Internal turmoil in Pakistan is intensifying. The government is faced with a widespread backlash of its Afghan policy. A dozen towns in the country have witnessed mobs coming on streets, raising slogans against the government and the US, burning US flags and damaging vehicles. This is the beginning of a large scale turmoil about to engulf Pakistan. The military ruler has shown signs of vacillation. The ISI chief has been replaced and there are some changes in the military top ranks. In a bid to divert the attention of the unruly mobs led by zealots from the government's policy of supporting US military action in Afghanistan, General Musharraf has played the old card. He has issued a warning to India that his country is ready to face any threat of attack and he has tried to de-link Kashmir from terror in Afghanistan. It means that he wants to assure the zealots that if the Muslims are unable to stand before the wrath of the Americans, they still have the Indian enemy to take on. However, the implications of Musharraf's support to the Americans are so serious that the zealots are unlikely to forgive him.

Should India attack the terrorists camps in PoK and Pakistan? The rationale behind the American action against Osama and Al-Qaeda is strong enough to motivate India to take a similar action for similar reasons and with similar objectives. International community cannot have two measuring rods. India may not do it. She has not done good homework and she has not smoothened international opinion in her favour.

Her leaders have been either lamenting and shedding tears in assemblies or at the best issuing a hollow threat now and then. In her New York terror related talks with the Americans, New Delhi should have obtained a clear cut message from Washington in regard to the terrorist challenges in Kashmir precisely in the manner in which the Russian President Putin elicited in regard to Chechen separatists. Enough evidence of Kashmiri terrorists being trained in Osama's training camps in Afghanistan had been produced before the Americans. Why was not the deal struck in an appropriate way?

But Musharraf's reverting to India and Kashmir while trying to mollify his rowdy mullahs at home is not going to make the impact desires. The emerging scenario in Afghanistan and his reaction are strong enough to dislodge him any moment. He has been drawn into indirect confrontation with the Allied Coalition on the issue of Northern Alliance. In his recent televised interview he said that the Northern Alliance should not think of taking additional mileage from the current situation in Afghanistan. The Northern Alliance foreign minister Abdul Abdullah shot back saying Pakistan should not think she is the king maker in Afghanistan, and the Afghans would themselves decide their fate.

Northern Alliance is the most crucial factor in the whole Afghan scenario. Moscow said it publicly that military assistance has been given to the Northern Alliance. The US and the allies, one and all are in full agreement on the question of providing full support to the NA. Not only that, the US commentators wondered why the Northern Alliance forces delayed a massive thrust on Mazar-e-Sharif. This is the strategy amply made clear by the Americans days before the actual strike on Osma's training camps began. That the Taliban regime had to be replaced by the broad-based representative regime encompassing all major ethnic groups is the basic formula discussed by the Americans and the British PM with the neighbouring countries including Pakistan. There has been a full agreement on that. It was in the light of this approach, that the NA delegation met with King Zahir Shah in Rome. The US representative also met with him and even Pakistanis established contact with him on this basic understanding. How come that Pakistan is now backing out and charging the NA of taking an additional mileage out of the present situation.

The world knows that a strong contingent of Pakistani troops including six of her Generals and an ISI team have been fighting side by side with the Taliban against the Northern Alliance. The war continues even when the US cruse missiles are showered on Afghan towns. The Taliban have not offered a cease- fire to the Northern Alliance. As such, one should expect both advances and reverses for each warring side in Afghanistan. If in the process, the Northern Alliance is able to capture Mazar-e-Sharif and Herat, which in all probability it will, General Musharraf has no reason to issue warnings to the heroes of Panjsheer valley. It is a question of who wins and who loses and not a question of how many per cent and with whom in Afghanistan. That is the formula according to which a couple of hundred of gunmen in Kandahar, raised, abetted, armed and supported by the former Pakistani Home Minister, General Naseerullah Babar, rose to become the arbiters of the destiny of twenty million Afghans.

Today the military action forced upon the allies by the Taliban is in fact a stupendous task of freeing millions of innocent and peace loving Afghans (and others like them elsewhere in the world) from the deadly clutches of a savage group that is provided the muscle strength by Pakistan. Therefore the flow of muscular strength has to be severed and the Afghans are to be provided the opportunity of deciding their future themselves. Pakistan is bamboozled because her concept of strategic depth westward has ended in smoke. Her Afghan policy has turne into her disaster At the end of the day, Pakistan has to learn to accept the harsh realities of geopolitics. But the big question is whether Pakistan will survive the warning signals of impending disintegration?

Yet one more debacle for Pakistan is in the offing. Indications from Washington are that the Jaysh-e-Mohammad, a fundamentalist-terrorist organization active in Kashmir, is likely to be brought on the list of terrorist organization of the State Department. This was expected after the State Department declared Hamas as a terrorist organization. The implication is that the US will formally recognise that Kashmir is under terrorist attack and shall have to be included in the areas around the globe where the long arm of anti-terrorist operations will reach. Kashmir, like Afghanistan, is waiting for the dawn of freedom after having gone through a decade or two of darkness.

Can India avert clash of civilisations?

By Balraj Puri

As, the cold war between the Taliban and the anti-terrorism coalition turns into the first hot war of the 21st Century with full scale aerial attack by America and its allies on Afghanistan’s military bases and training camps, India should play its role with greater clarity and firmness.

It is no time to seek international sympathy as victim of the worst ever terrorist attack in Srinagar on 1 October. Instead of crying for help as a nation besieged by terrorists, India should behave in a self-confident and dignified way by aspiring to shape the world anti- terrorism agenda and a post-Taliban policy.

India’s geo-political situation, civilisational background and commitment to democracy and pluralism, with second largest Muslim population in the world - after Indonesia which does not matter much in the Muslim world - uniquely equips it to prevent an attack of Muslim fanatics on the citadel of western democracies from degenerating into what Sammual Huttington had called "Clash of Civilisations".

India should be in a better position than many other nations in understanding the phenomenon of Taliban. For, if it remembers, that Pushtoons, the ethnical base of Taliban, were friendliest with Indian national leadership before and after the partition. The celebrated symbol of their identity, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, proudly owned the title of Frontier Gandhi. Pushtoons had never reconciled to the Durand Line that divide them between Afghanistan and Pakistan and thus posed a threat to the integrity and ideology of the latter and had friendliest relations with India till early eighties.

Another significant fact about the Talibans is that they follow India based Deoband school of Islam. Jarniat Ulema of Pakistan headed by Maulana Faziur Rehman, the ideologue of Talibans, organised 134th anniversary of the founding of this world renowned seminary a few months back. Held at Peshawar, it was attended by an estimated audience of half a million Pushtoons from the NWFP of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The significance of the international Deoband Conference did not merely lie in the fact that it was held in Pakistan and not in India and was organised by a Pakistani organisation and not by an Indian organisation or by the institute itself. What is more significant is the fact that Deoband was in the vanguard of the freedom movement of India. It provided theological justification for the concept of a composite Indian nationalism by citing a similar precedent set by the prophet in Madina Covenant, of people of all religions. Jamiat-Ulema Hind, most of members of which were products of Deoband or were associated with it was closest ally of the Congress in the freedom movement and in opposition to the two nations theory. Tallest Islamic scholar of the twentieth century, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and Mahatma Gandhi, who laid the basis of Indian secularism, always patronised Deoband.

Why could not Deoband retain its place of honour within the mainstream Indian nationalism and why have Pushtoons become the bigoted fanatics and dreaded terrorists? The answers to these questions may not be simple but surprisingly they have never been asked.

Taking the second question first, the Pushtoons ware shocked to their cores when till then a friendly Indian government welcomed occupation of Afghanistan by the Soviet army. The vacuum created by loss of goodwill for India was filled by the help offered by the USA through arms and Pakistan through its version of Islamic ideology. For ideology is often a means to achieve ends of the urges of an ethnic identity. The urges cannot be suppressed. They seek help of whatever ideological means can satisfy them. This is a possible explanation of Talibanisation of Pushtoons and not its justification.

But how has Deoband ideology become suitable for the new Pushtoon urges? Has it, too, changed in its relation to Indian nationalism? It may be recalled that ulama as a class had opposed the demand of Pakistan, the campaign for which was led by westernised and modernised Muslim leadership. While Gandhi could not find a common idiom for a dialogue with a leader like Jinnah, who was least religious, he had an excellent rapport with the religious Muslim leaders.

After the partition, there was no Gandhi or non-communal religious leader who could engage the Muslim religious leadership in a dialogue. Meanwhile Pakistan, under Zial-ul Haque’s government, needed an Islamic ideology as an instrument of its national policies in Afghanistan and Kashmir and as all important centres of Islamic learning were based in India, it imported it from Deoband with necessary modifications and distortations.

As the effective political leadership of the Indian Muslims migrated to Pakistan, the problems of the community also became the concern of the ulama. If they are engaged neither in inter-religion nor in inter-community dialogues, with the rest of the nation, a ten- dency towards a combination of religious and communal exclusiveness would be inevitable.

However, there was a marked difference in the angry outbursts of the leader of the Jamiat Ularna-i-Islam of Pakistan, Maulana Fazlur Rehman and Taliban leaders like Mullah Alman Akhund and Mullah Omar on the one hand and scholarly and sober speeches of the Vice Chancellor of Deoband Maulana Marghoobur Rehman and Jamait-e-Ulema Hind leader Maulana Asad Madni on the other, at the Peshawar conference. It was due to the presence of Indian guests that the former had to make substantial compromises on the resolution on Kashmir passed at the conference.

Nevertheless the Deoband authorities must do some serious rethinking on its pivotal role in saving Islam from the ignomity to which it is being dragged by Talibans. Perhaps Deoband is still in a position to help de-Talibanisation of Pushtoons. For if they could out- grow - under certain circumstances - Gandhi-Gaffar Khan heritage, their present synonymity with Talibanism may not be taken for granted for ever.

Without exonerating Pushtoons and Deoband of their responsibility, the rest of the nation must also try to understand the factors that are influencing their behaviour. The legitimacy of Pushtoon opposition to the Soviet invasion and expectation of sympathy and sup- port from India, for instance, could be conceded even now. Similarly Deoband is not merely an Islamic institution. Its status and role as a premier national institution also needs to be recognised. Pushtoon-Deoband connection may not be an unmixed evil for India; even if it cannot be used to win back or neutralise Pushtoons, an ally of yester years.

Moreover, today they pose a greater threat to Pakistan who, by aligning with America has, according to them, betrayed them. Hints have not only been thrown by them for reviving the demand for independent Pushtoonstan, they are threatening to divide Pakistan into pro-America and pro-Taliban camps. A Pushtoon leader warned Pakistan of the possible consequences of a hostile neighbour in its east as well as in the west.

India need not be obsessed by the role of Pakistan and Afghanistan in the immediate past, but should take an objective view of their present troubled conditions within them and their mutually hostile relations. Instead of trying to compete with Pakistan for winning over friendship of America or being haunted by the country, India should aspire for making its contribution towards ensuring peace and stability in the region.

The recent meeting between grandsons of Mahatma Gandhi and Abdul Ghaffar Khan may not yield any immediate results. But potentiality their common heritage in reviving the old relations between the two countries need not be dismissed. We may or may not succeed in reviving the Pushtoon-Deoband-Gandhi equation of pre 1 980 days, but in no case post-1 980 Pushtoon-Pakistan relations can be taken for granted for ever. Whatever shape India-Pakistan-Pushtoon triangle takes place, India should be in a position to play an effective role as a regional power, rather than treating countries of the region as its rivals or enemies. For playing this role India should monitor developing contradictions between, say, Pakistan and Taliban, Taliban and the rest of Afghanistan, Muslim opinion and government in Pakistan and between the Hurriyat and the militants in Kashmir.

Above all the new scenario entrusts on India the historic task of averting a polarisation between the Islamic world and the West. Instead of seeking protection in the Western camp, its national interest and potential demands that it should act as a bridge between the so called clashing civilisations.

School Edcucation in J&K

By Arpit Kumar

Notwithstanding what the Government officials say the health of Education in general and that School Education is in a very bad State. To be honest it is in the complete mess thanks to inefficient and corrupt Educational Administrators. Corruption is right from the lowest rungs of administration to the highest. It is brain shaking to even conceive that not a single paper moves in offices of school education unless it is properly greased. It is no secret now that transfers of employees are manipulated by power of money or of political influence only. There appears to be no concept of tenures in the department. The officers even drawn from the coveted services IAS fail to deliver goods in the department. They utterly fail in the department. They are dependent on their subordinates who have no will or worth to work. Those who could deliver goods within the department are relegated to insignificant posts and places. The result is every body in the department is a square peg in round hole. Perhaps the department is one where every-one in bureaucracy and politics has some vested interested. The department it appears has been created to provide services to relatives, and wives of senior bureaucrats and politicians. We have schools with 20 odd students and fifty teachers. Yet result is no better than obscure village school with fifty students with half teachers as the one posted attends only for half the period in a year. All attempts launched with great fanfare are doomed to fail a scheme called rationalisation of staff is a case in point. In Jammu district alone we have 950 vacant posts of teachers. There are high schools with 2-3 teachers only. We have higher secondary schools with no laboratory staff at all at the one end of the spectrum and on the other Higher Secondary Schools with 8-10 laboratory staff but no students offering science subjects. We have gasman in all newly upgraded schools where we can never imagine a gas plant to be installed in next fifty years. We have gardeners in schools but no gardens. We have safaiwallahs but no toilets and where these exists, these are cleaned by private sweepers only. We have multitude of clerks but not type - writers. We have large schools with one clerk but small ones with four clerks with no work to do. True in a welfare State that J&K is the primary aim of employing people is to give them have and the not exact work. This process is complete and thus is fulfilled.

Over years things have further deteriorated. None has any concern with what is going on in the department. Even in the third week of September a bulk of teachers getting pay from Non-plan Schemes are without pay for want of budget allotment. The Directorate of School education has become a dead office. It takes months together for a decision to be taken unless one greases the machine well.

We have an important wing in the Directorate that is of Private School. This is perhaps the only section where some work is done in the entire School Education Department. Here papers move with jet speed. But here too constradictions are apparent. Inspectors are appointed at the behest of institutions to be inspected. In papers an inspector is shown to have inspected school twice, but in practice not even one inspection is actually conducted. If there is a survey as to how many inspections have actually been conducted in the last 10 years it would turn out to be big zero. Why should it not be? No inspections have actually been conducted by Directors in last 10 years so is the case with C.E.Os.

In each school we see heaps of useless stores pending for auction or write off for the last 20-30 years but this never takes place. A head of institute in Education Department is authorised to write off an article whose book value is not above rupees 50 and that is subject to maximum of Rs. 250 in an year. But even this statutory power is not exercised by rule ignorant officers. Stock registers are never properly maintained. Even physical verification is never carried out. No inventory of charges is maintained in any school. In this mess we have schools where even steel items are written of as "eaten by white ant" and also schools which have even jute matting unwritten off since 1970 or even earlier.

Over some years the Directorate has lost all faith in the field of officers. It has taken upon itself task of making all purchases for schools. The results are dismal. Nothing worth while has been purchased over years now. Even science equipment and chemicals are never approved or supplied to schools. The sordid result is that no actual practical work is being done in the schools for the last 15 years. Now the J&K State Board of School Education has confounded the mess by revising the list of practicals in physics, chemistry and bio sciences. The material needed can never be procured for even next 20 years no substantial improvement is made, and the whole system is revamped.

Better safe than sorroy

By Aarti

The ghastly plane crash of September 30 that killed senior Congress leader Mr. Madhavrao Scindia, his personal aide, four journalists and two crew members near Motta village in Mainpuri District of Uttar Pradesh, perhaps the worst domestic air tragedy in recent times, has brought into sharp focus the low priority accorded to air safety in the country. Meanwhile the high-level committee constituted by the Central Government to probe into the procedure of acquisition, maintenance and operational aspects of small private aircraft as well recommend measures is aimed at putting in place measures to help flying such planes safer.

The 10-seater King Air Beechcraft C-90, a second hand plane acquired by the Jindal group four-years ago and used for carrying its executives for the past 4 years ago is said to have obtained the statutory clearances to undertake the flight. Commanded by a senior pilot with nearly 1,400 hours of flying experience and a co-pilot on her maiden flight, no problem was reportedto the air traffic control at the last point for Mr. Scindia’s flight, when cruising at a height of 14,000 feet.

While inquiry instituted by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) into the incident is likely to look into the certificate of airworthiness of the ill-fated aircraft, professional record of the pilots, the last conversation with the ATC, sabotage etc., unraveling the mystery behind the crash will an onerous task. More so because the plane (exempted under civil aviation rules, as it weighed below 5700 kgs) did not have the black box containing the cockpit voice recorder, flight data recorder etc., otherwise mandatory for all commercial and Air Force planes. A number of private airlines have been held for violations of air safety norms. Notable among them is a helicopter belonging to the MESCO group that was reportedly flown without valid flight release and night flying was undertaken without ATC service. Similarly the Captain of a MESCO Airlines flight had exercised the privileges of his license after the expiry of his medical fitness certificate. A Skyline NEPC B-737 aircraft made a wrong approach for Tambaram (IAF airfield) while landing at Madras (domestic) Airport. Another Skyline NEPC plane was forced to make an emergency landing because its engineer had released the flight without proper inspection of the landing gears.

Official figures show that about 94 IAF aircraft have crashed during the last five years (on an average more than once a month) killing over 35 pilots. The reasons cited for the crashes are old planes, technical failures, design flaws, and human error. Ironically just a week before his death, Mr. Madavrao Scindia alongwith many prominent parliamentarians had submitted a memorandum to Prime Minister AB Vajpayee requesting him to personally take interest in the crashes in the Indian Air Force.

The overall issue of human safety needs to view on a wider canvas as various studies indicate that laxity in enforcement of safety norms by regulatory authorities as well as disregard to basic tenets of safety by individuals has compounded the problem.

Despite an average 1.2 railway accidents (including fatal ones) every day somewhere in the country, it was the Kadalundi tragedy in June this year (in which 50 lives were lost) that drove home the importance of stepping up financial allocations (Rs 17,00 crores) to ensure rail safety. Belatedly, after several trials, the railways are all set to install anti-collision devices in all trains with a view to prevent any head on collision or to stop an approaching train which can likely hit a stationary or slow moving train from behind.

Road accidents claiming over 70, 000 lives a year on an average seems to be increasing despite comprehensive motor vehicle regulations in vogue.

Reports have shown that apart from mechanical defects in vehicles, due to improper preventive and corrective maintenance, fatal accidents are mostly caused by callous drivers (some without valid licenses but reckless and drunk) driving at great speed oblivious of the volume and intensity of traffic.

Live/loose electric wires hanging precariously in public places and electric poles leaning dangerously in residential areas pose significant risk of fire hazards, but nobody seems to care. Some estimates indicate that across the country every year some 20,000 lives are lost even as elaborate fire safety rules exist, causing about Rs 1,200 crore damage to property directly and indirectly. Notably Delhi tops with 15,000 such incidents causing 300-400 deaths besides Rs 25 – 30 crore damage to property which is 3 times more than the total number of fires in the three metros of Chennai, Kolkata and Mumbai put together. The problem of building collapses in our cities and towns, particularly during monsoons including those built in metros like Mumbai (after the 1980 cement scandal days when poor quality of cement was in circulation) have not stopped. Apparently, nexus between authorities, contractors and building owners is stated to facilitate the rampant flouting of building byelaws as well disregarding the norms on the use of the building space. The failure to adhere to the prescribed standards on upkeep and maintenance coupled with poor quality of work is another important factor resulting in fatal deaths and injuries. While political will can contribute considerably to plug the loopholes in the system, sensitising the concerned individuals and simplification of official/legal procedures, to penalise the culprits swiftly, can act as effective deterrents. The approach to safety ought to be tamper-proof with no room for any complacency.