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EDITORIAL Home Minister has drawn a
clear line between militants and secessionists in Jammu
& Kashmir. While it may be difficult to identify who
represents secessionism and what is a militant, the
correct perception is that Government is willing to talk
to anyone with the only rider that dialogue has got to be
within the framework of Indian Constitution. This also
happens to be stand of the State Government. The.....more The decision of the American power giant to withdraw from the Mangalore Power project clearly show how red-tapism and lengthy legal proceedings have forced Cogetrix to abandon the project where the company has already invested more than a billion dollar. They prefer to lose this amount rather than bear the constant pestering and humiliations galore at the hands....more |
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Curbing corruption Indian aviation system Give Pakistani |
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EDITORIAL Home Minister has drawn a clear line between militants and secessionists in Jammu & Kashmir. While it may be difficult to identify who represents secessionism and what is a militant, the correct perception is that Government is willing to talk to anyone with the only rider that dialogue has got to be within the framework of Indian Constitution. This also happens to be stand of the State Government. The factual position is that secessionist organisations and leaders will not swear by the Constitution as they happen to be on the pay roll of Pakistan. They are getting enough of funds and have seldom criticised influx of mercenaries who are now spearheading the insurgency in the State. If proof is needed it manifests abundantly from the seizure of letter written by Pak dictator General Musharraf to Hurriyat leader Ali Geelani detained under Public Security Act in Jodhpur jail. This amply proves how close Hurriyat leadership is to Pakistan. In fact it is surmised that Gen Musharraf prepared the five point agenda for propping up insurgency in the state by incorporating features recommended by Geelani. Even prior to this there has been close liaison between Hurriyat and Pak High Commission in New Delhi. So they are secessionists to the core and unless they give up such stance, there is no chance of any talks with them. Then comes the talks with militants. Some might have strayed into militancy under duress or fallen for the fundamentalist tones. They have realised the futility of adopting gun-culture as the means to achieve their goals. Many of them have surrendered in the past and a big rehabilitative exercise has been undertaken so that they do not change track away from mainstream. Such of the militants have overall good of the people of the State in mind rather than merely dance to the tunes of Pak bandmasters. That is why Pakistan distrusts them totally as evident by giving the command and control of insurgency to mostly mercenary outfits like Lashkar-e-Toiba, a Lahore based terrorist organisation and Harkat-ul-Mujahideen. If it were a local movement there was no necessity to import mercenaries into the State and give them full charge of insurgency. It is thus clear that such of the militants and their leadership is amenable to reason and capable of seeing the writing on the wall. They do not like to be detained in Jodhpur jail and can be brought to mainstream like Lal Denga in Mizoram and Phizo in Nagaland. It is however still ponderable who amongst such reluctant militants would bell the cat or whether the initiative or invitation would emanate from Delhi. Another reason for such of militants who see only darkness in secessionism is the welfare of their families. They do not wish to be called sons of militants and the next best thing is to adopt reconciliatory attitude by giving up gun-culture and swear by the Constitution. Given the very bad experience of Hurriyat tantrums which has failed to stand upto the expectations of the people on any crucial issue, such militants have to be identified and then move ahead in right earnest. This is a clear signal to those amenable to reason to give up rigid stance and think independent of Pak fundamentalism and the fate that awaits them all across the border if ever they cross-over. Advani's offer to talk to militants and not to secessionists is an opportunity for the Hurriyat amalgam to ponder over their future and that of their kith and kins. They must not deceive the mother that feeds them, that provides palatial shelters, that ignores all their faults. Although detention under PSA without framing any charges is an abhorrent thought but all the same inevitable. It would be more prudent and discreet for the powers that be to frame the 25 Hurriyat detenues with substantial charges. If the present laws have loopholes that could provide them escape routes, the State is competent to enact its own law on the pattern of Tamil Nadu so that secessionists and terrorists sponsored by Pakistan can be tried more effectively with deterrent impact. Advani also explains that talks apart which are conditional to be within the framework of Constitution, there is not going to be any let up in counter-insurgency operations. True, operations in prevailing form suffer from some gross infirmities and are time-consuming. It is equally true that security forces have to observe many restraints and are under strict orders to observe human rights in its totality. Yet counter insurgency operations did succeed that facilitated 1996 assembly polls and subsequent rounds of Lok Sabha polls. It is quite another thing that something went away and there is sudden spurt in Pak sponsored terrorism. If situation could be brought to near normal in 1995-96, there is no reason to be pessimistic and strategy is constantly being updated to deal with ticklish situation largely attributed to persistent flow of infiltrators due to porous borders. Though the situation is quite serious, yet handing over the State to army has been ruled out. This means results could be late but inevitable. The decision of the American power giant to withdraw from the Mangalore Power project clearly show how red-tapism and lengthy legal proceedings have forced Cogetrix to abandon the project where the company has already invested more than a billion dollar. They prefer to lose this amount rather than bear the constant pestering and humiliations galore at the hands of powers that be. Their abandonment thus reflects disillusionment with the system in vogue and open many questions for which clear answers have to be forthcoming to make liberalisation meaningful. First, why State Government did not honour its 1997 agreement with Cogetrix on fixation of rates for power to be supplied by the Mangalore project. The conditions also stipulated central guarantee like the one given to Enron which has failed to come up. On the one hand Government is busy inviting FDIs with tall promises. On the other hand, here is classic case which had to quit in sheer disgust. Some sort of mechanism has to be evolved whereby legal relief or verdicts in respect of FDIs are promptly given even if it be against the FDI. It is worth mentioning that Enron succeeded after going through no less than 42 legal opinions. All FDIs cannot have similar patience. Worst still is the predicament of the foreign companies when they are accused of giving kick-backs and trapped in long legal proceedings. As far as foreign major investors are concerned, be it from Japan, America or any other industrialised country kick-backs are natural for them to increase their business potential. In the instant case High Court had held Cogetrix guilty of paying kickbacks but Apex Court has rightly annulled the High Court verdict and aquitted Cogetrix of this charge. If only this ruling had been expedited, Cogetrix would not have withdrawn so abruptly. The company is right on course when it puts two riders to resume the project. First, State Government must abide by its 1997 agreement and second Centre must give the counter guarantee. At stake is power supply, this being infrastructural investment. Much more than that is the wrong message of negativism that spreads fast. American Business Council has already expressed its apprehensions on abrupt withdrawal of Cogetrix from Mangalore Power Project. |
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Curbing
corruption through laws Offences of corruption commit-ted by, or in relation to, serv-ants were earlier dealt under the Indian Penal Code, and the Prevention of Corruption Act, of 1947. The Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 came into force with effect on September 9, the same year, and all the corresponding provisions in the IPC and PC Act 1947, automatically stood repeated. However, in respect of offences committed upto, and inclusive of, September 8, 1988, chargesheets would continue to be filed (even in future) only under the (old) sections of IPC and PC Act, 1947. This is on account of section 6 of the General Clauses Act, 1897. Sections 7, 8, 9 and 10 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, which deal with corruption, are as under :- Section 7: Public servant taking gratification other than legal remuneration in respect of an official act. Whoever being or expecting to be a public servant accepts or obtains or agrees to accept or attempts to obtain from any person, for himself or for any other person, any gratification whatever, other than legal remuneration, as a motive or reward for doing or forbearing to show, in the exercise of an State Government or Parliament or the Legislature of any Central Government or any State Government or Parliament or the Legislature of any State or with any local authority, corporation or Government company referred to in clause (C) of section 2, or with any public servant, whether named or otherwise, whall be punishable with imprisonment which shall be not less than six months but which may extend to five years and shall also be liable to fine. Explanation : (a) "Expecting to be a public servant". If a person not expecting to be in office obtains a gratification by deceiving others into a belief that he is about to be in office, and that he will then serve them, he may be guilty of cheating, but he is not guilty of the offence defined in this section. (b) "Gratification". The word "gratification" is not restricted to pecuniary gratifications or to gratifications estimable in money. (c) "Legal remuneration". The word "legal remuneration" is not restricted to remuneration, which a public servant can lawfully demand, but include all remuneration which is permitted by the Government or the organisation, which he serves, to accept. (d) "A motive or reward for doing". A person who receives a gratification as a motive or reward or doing what he does not intend or is not in a position to do, or has done, comes within this expression. (e) Where a public servant induces a person erroneously to believe that his influence with the Government has obtained a title for that person and thus induces that person to give the public servant, money or any other gratification as a reward for this service, the public servant has committed an offence under this section. Section 8 : Taking gratification in order, by corrupt or illegal means, to influence public servant. Whoever accepts or obtains, or agrees to accept, or attempts to obtain from any other person any gratification whatever as a motive or reward for inducing, by corrupt or illegal means, any public servant, whether named or otherwise, to do or to forbear to do any official act, or in the exercise of the official functions of such public servant to show favour or disfavour to any person, or to render or attempt to render any service or disservice to any person with the Central Government or any State Government or Parliament or the Legislature of any State or with any local authority, corporation or Government company referred to in clause (C) of section 2, or with any public servant, whether named or otherwise, shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which shall be not less than six months but which may extend to five years and shall also be liable to fine. Section 9: Taking gratification for exercise of personal influence with public servant : Whoever accepts or obtains or agrees to accept or attempts to obtain, from any person, for himself or for any other person, any gratification whatever, as a motive or reward for inducing, by the exercise of personal influence, any public servant, whether named or otherwise, to do or to forbear to do any official act, or in the exercise of the official functions of such public servant to show favour or disfavour to any person, or to render or attempt to render any service or disservice to any person with the Central Government or a State Government or Parliament or the Legislature of any State or with any local authority, corporation or Government company referred to in clause (C) of section 2, or with any public servant, whether named or otherwise, shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which shall be not less than six months but which may extend to five years and shall also be liable to fine. Section 10: Punishment for abetment by public servant of offences defined in section 8 or 9 : Whoever, being a public servant, in respect of whom either of the offences, defined in section 8 or 9 is committed, abets the offence, whether or not that offence is committed in consequence of that abetment, shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which shall be not less than six months but which may extend to five years and shall also be liable to fine. Except Section 168, IPC (S.No. 7), all the other sections in columns 2 and 3 have been repeated by the PC Act, 1988. The corresponding new sections in PC Act, 1988 are furnished in column 4 above. Dealing with corruption in any organisation is a specialised affair. It is because each organisation has its own culture, methods of functioning, operational, environmental, production and marketing problems. Broadly speaking, the following methods are suggested for dealing with any infractions involving people of doubtful integrity. First of all, dealing with corruption should be looked upon as a management function and an aid to effective administration. The Chief Executive should, once in a quarter, discuss with the heads of the Departments any bottlenecks in their functioning and the persons coming in the way of achieving the goals and objectives of the organisation. The heads of Departments should be asked to identify the persons, who in their view are people of doubtful integrity. The reputation of a person travels faster than the wind. Due note should be taken of any dubious conduct. Generally hard evidence would be difficult to come by in collusive corruption, wherein both the giver and the receiver benefit and the only loser is the State or the organisation, which is being short-charged. Such a data should be kept on a dedicated computer network, with access being available only to the Chief Executive, the Chief Vigilance officer. Others should be brought into the picture, only on need-to-know basis. The data bank should contain all instances wherein the organisation has suffered a loss or any departmental action taken or any person prosecuted in a court of law, irrespective of the fact whether he was convicted or acquitted. The data should also contain details of any complaints against any individual in the organisation and action taken thereon. The complaints, whether anonymous or pseudonymous, should be maintained department-wise and year-wise. It is worthwhile to emphasise that all anonymous or pseudonymous complaints are not false. It is only that the complainant is afraid of owning it up either due to fear or apprehension or has some vested interest. While not regarding them as gospel truth, it is worthwhile to verify verifiable allegations. This serves a dual purpose. If the allegations are frivolous, it clears the aggrieved person, restores his confidence in himself and prevents his demoralisation. If the complaint is even partially true, it has the effect of making the organisation cautious in taking remedial measures. The following steps will help in tackling the corruption : First of all, account matters should be computerised. Receipts and payments should be closely monitored. Corruption prevails in the preparation and passing of the bills. It also prevails in seemingly harmless activities, like writing of the cheques and delivering the same to the concerned. Outer time limits should be fixed for all such activities and prominently displayed publicly so that it does not remain confined to the dusty and musty files. Wrong, incorrect billing, double accounting and double payment, fake muster rolls where such a system prevails, contracts, tendering need special attention. Right to Information : except the commercial information, which may affect the operations of the organisation, it should be freely practised. There should be rotational transfers from one section to the other, unless it is the case of scientific staff, which cannot be replaced. Nobody should be allowed to stay in one seat or place for more than three years. Public counters or those sections which deal with the public should be located in such places, that all their activities and working is visible not only to the outsiders, but also to its own officers. The senior officers, at least once a month should man such windows to know how their public relations are faring. There should be a fixed time for access, needing to visit the departments, only at the authorised level. Access to the case workers should not be granted. Only senior officers equivalent to the Under Secretary and above should meet visitors coming to the Department. As far as possible, clear and unambiguous rules should be laid down. Discretion in all facets of the organisation should preferably be done away or reduced to the bare minimum. All laws, rules, procedures pertaining to the organisation should be simplified. They should be constantly reviewed so that they do not become a bottleneck in the way of the success of the organisational goals. In every organisation, it is mandatory to file property returns. They should be carefully scrutinised. - CNF |
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Give Pakistani humour a
chance You can put Pakistan out of humour, but you cannot take humour out of Pakistani. Stories born in Karachi, like so much else born in the subcontinent, prefer to take the non-resident route: at the first opportunity they travel to London, before quick dispersal across the high density gossip centres of the Hinglish-and-Pinglish-speaking world. The story I heard in London deals with the luckless husband of Benazir Bhutto, Asif Zardari, who has now spent some years in prison on the orders of the Bhutto nemesis, ex-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. (Both India and Pakistan are full of ex-Prime Ministers but in Pakistan they become ex in a slightly more gruesome manner). When destiny took Nawaz Sharif into Karachi jail, Zardari, its oldest VIP resident, immediately welcomed Sharif with fruit, flowers and other suitable gestures of traditional Sindhi hospitality. But, as we all know, Nawaz Sharif had to spend his first days in that prison in the company of rats. Contrary to some analysts, Pakistani generals did not do so on the assumption that a politician is most comfortable in the company of rats. They merely discovered that Karachi jail had only one VIP 'A' class cell, and that was occupied by the resident VIP Asif Zardari. When Nawaz Sharif began to get some public sympathy for his condition, the generals sent a message to Zardari asking whether he would be kind enough to share the cell with Sharif. Zardari replied that as a Sindhi he was by nature hospitable, but not so hospitable as to share a cell with a man he hated. As criticism rose to above-murmur level, the generals pleaded with Zardari to reconsider. To their surprise, he accepted immediately. The generals asked Zardari why. "Well," he replied, "it occurred to me that I had not slept with a Prime Minister for a long long time." Laughter should not be confused with happiness. Better humour emerges out of despair. Pakistan is a nation in despair. More than fifty years have passed since a distant dream became an acid reality, and nothing seems to work. The political system is in a shambles. The judiciary tries to maintain a moral and intellectual integrity, but is defeated too often by circumstances that force it to compromise with chaos. Political parties are held together by greed, and collapse when deprived of power because they no longer have anything to sell. Nothing more relevant than a farm-economy can survive in a system devoid of law or accountability. It is symptomatic that the first, and perhaps the only real task that the new rulers of Pakistan have set themselves is to try and get back wealth stolen from the State, either through Government or through banks. It is king Canute-country: every Prime Minister or President or Martial Law Administrator or, as in the present case, the euphemistic Chief Executive, sits on the shore and orders the waves to recede. Each time they seem to pause in the beginning, and each time they overwhelm and drown the new king. Pakistan is a nation that has even run out of names for its highest political authority. General Pervez Musharraf calls himself chief executive not because he wants private sector perquisites, but because every normal designation has wasted out its relevance in his abnormal polity. This is no reason to gloat; this is a source of some sadness, not just because Pakistan has slipped into morass but because insecurity is a dangerous condition in a volatile, nuclear state. Pakistan will not find its answers in complaints against Allah, or bitterness against India. There is a special irony in the first proposition because the idea of Pakisan, particularly in its present form, was first formally presented by that inspirational poet Sir Muhammad Iqbal at the Muslim League conference in the doldrum-year of 1930. Iqbal did not include Bangladesh in his futuristic Muslim state, and was wise not to do so; precisely because he understood the cultural confines within which a nation-state must survive. He understood something that Jinnah and future League leaders did not: that the country he dreamt of would be for Muslims, rather than for Islam, and that the Muslims of the Northwest of India were different from the Muslims of eastern India, just as the Muslims of eastern India were different from the Muslims of Indonesia or the Muslims of the Arab lands. The irony will be visible to those who have read Iqbal, for such ideas waited on the ballast provided by Iqbal's famous nazm Shikwa, or the Complaint to Allah that asked Allah a question: why had He forsaken Muslims? If Iqbal, buried today in Lahore, had lived to see Pakistan he would have known that this was not the answer. Pakistani does not have a national ideology. It has faith, it has ability, it has the scaffolding on which structures can be created, but it is founded on an insubstantial base. Pakistan escaped from united India, and for fifty years it has been searching for a place to rest. General Zia ul Haq, who thought more about such matters than he let on, was convinced that the answer lay in Nizam-e-Mustafa; but his views did not survive one plane crash. General Zia used to compare Pakistan with Israel, had been created to ensure the survival of Jews, Pakistan, he argued had been created to ensure the survival of Islam on the Indian subcontinent. One could fill this newspaper with the flaws in this argument, but one answer will suffice Islam is not so weak that it needs the protection of generals. Or so weak that it will disappear simply because Muslims live in the midst of a majority that does not share their faith. A true Muslim will believe in Islam even if he is alone in the midst of a billion people; it would be a facile faith that needed to exist only in a majority -state, and Islam is not facile. The Quran is both inspiring and structured, a message that forms a link between the human and the divine. Nawaz Sharif was General Zia's chosen successor; in the relay race that is Pakistani politics that can only mean handling the baton by arrangement and at the appropriate time. The general's unexpected death in an air crash offered an opportunity for the restoration of democracy, but both Benazir Bhutto, who won power after Zia, and Sharif, who replaced her, did not understand that democracy is much more than winning elections. An election is only the starting point of a democracy; not the whole of it. Governments, elected or otherwise, came and departed after Zia with no reference to popular will because no one in authority understood authority. The human factor was never subject to institutional control. Presidents dismissed Prime Ministers and Prime Ministers selected Presidents and both were left to spiral in ascending confusion as long they left sufficient space for the generals. It is no accident that both Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif were sent to jail by generals they had handpicked and promoted over seniors in the belief that they would be compensated by loyalty. Their mistake lay not in misunderstanding loyalty, but in misunderstanding who and what they were dealing with. The Army is the only stable institution in Pakistan - more accurately, the only institution in Pakistan -- because it lives by a code that is above the chaotic polity. It believes, and there is legitimacy in that belief, that it is the only institution that can defend Pakistan, that can keep Pakistan alive as a nation. If a Government is defeated, certain individuals perish. When the Army is defeated, Pakistan will perish. Every general will therefore be more loyal to the Army than to Any Government. There are times, in fact, when patriotism will demand that the Army treats the Government with contempt. The politicians may not have found an ideology, but the Pakistan Armed Forces have one. Patriotism. Their rationale may not be more complicated than that, and patriotism alone has severe limitations as a binding national thread, but at least the Army has something larger than self-interest to motivate it. The fact that the Army is not competent to run a civilian Government is also true. But that is only one more reason why Pakistan is in such a mess. Pakistan is at any given time a difficult nation to understand, and even more difficult to deal with. It is baffling to discover that Delhi tends to deal with Governments of Pakistan rather than Pakistan. We have to deal with Pakistan on the basis of what is good for India, not on the basis of what is good for Pakistan -- more so when we do not really know what is good or better for our neighbours. Pakistan is more objective about its approach to India than India is towards Pakistan. They do not worry too much about who is in power; they stick to what they have to any, whether the Government of India is dressed in khaddar, saffron or any colour in between. The Vajpayee Government, in contrast, has suggested that it is more concerned about democracy than about Pakistan. This may be, in the case of Atal Behari Vajpayee, a concern provoked by genuine goodwill. But goodwill is not good enough. Cool clarity is far more useful. Perhaps our high commissioner in Islamabad should send Mr Vajpayee a weekly selection of jokes from Pakistan. They would probably say more about the country than all the political commentary put together. |
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