Daily Excelsior... Editorial

EDITORIAL

Perils of reporting

Poonch needs attention
of Government

By Prof Barkat Singh Azad

Every body living in the District or who has a chance to visit this far flung, hilly, border ....more

North - East in darkness

By Sanchet Barua

The emerging political and economic contours in the north-east can be expected .......more

Story of Musharraf's 'love'
TALES OF TRAVESTY

By Dr. Jitendra Singh

Anybody who goes through Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's recently published autobiography "In the line of fire'' is ......more

Guerrilla warfare

By Fazal Mehmood

The Army Chief General J J Singh has deputed Brigadier B K Ponwal, who was the Chief Instructor at the Jungle Warfare .. .......more

Child abuse

By Sweta Patwardhan

The government has banned the child labour without any impact. The Child labour Act only bans child labour in specific industries and has actually helped put ..... .......more.

EDITORIAL

Perils of reporting

What are you doing? An innocuous telephone query from outside the State may evoke the following response from Srinagar: "I am watching the firing between the police and the militants." "Oh! You move to a safer place. I will ring up later", the caller says. However, the reporter insists: "There is no problem. Let's go on with the dialogue. By now I am used to these situations." Nevertheless the caller hangs up after he listens to a couple of shots on his mobile phone. His concern is about the safety of his friend. The latter, however, has little choice. He has a job on hand that he must perform to the best of his ability. It is truer in the case of those who represent television news channels. Unlike those in the print media their success lies in how fast they are able to relay information from the spot. They have to firmly establish their identity to prove that they are at the exact place of occurrence of the incident. The profession is not as easy as it may seem from the comforts of one's home. This is not to belittle reporters in the print media. They have occasional advantage of having a fixed deadline. Their occupation otherwise is tougher. They must strain every nerve to score an extra point: they have to ensure that those who have already watched TV read their reports as well the next morning. Quite a few journalists and photographers --- the local as well as outsiders ---have lost their lives in the Valley after 1989. In the beginning of militancy it was extremely difficult to report from Srinagar. There would be declared and undeclared curfews and blackouts. STD facilities were disconnected. Fax service was available first only at the Central Telegraph Office (CTO) and later at the Tourist Reception Centre (TRC). There is a case of one reporter who lived in his office having outdated teleprinter network. He could barely move out and developed a long beard because barber shops were also closed. The worse was the plight of those staying in hotels. To catch deadlines they would stir out. During nights they had to shout on their way to CTO in order to disclose their identity. This was done in response to invisible enquirers in pitch dark. The scenario has definitely improved with the passage of time. There is better equipment. In addition there is more camaraderie. Media organisations have also become more sensitive and receptive to news-gathering operations in such situations.

However, the basic challenges remain. A reporter has to function in their face. There is no choice either here or elsewhere in the world. According to a group Reporters Without Borders, 63 journalists were killed across the globe last year 22 of them in Iraq. They were among 1300 who were attacked. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists 78 reporters were eliminated in the world in 2004 more than half of them in retaliation to their work. During the last 10 years more than 300 journalists have been murdered while discharging their responsibilities. As long as small men hold influential positions they will continue to resist inquisitive and truthful reporters at every cost. The world has never been a safe place for journalists. The most dangerous countries for them are stated to be the Philippines, Colombia, Bangladesh and Russia in that order. Besides, there is always one trouble spot or the other. If it was Vietnam earlier it is Afghanistan these days. Nevertheless it is a career that must be pursued to provide correct feedback for taking right decisions in everyone's interest.

Poonch needs attention of Government

By Prof Barkat Singh Azad

Every body living in the District or who has a chance to visit this far flung, hilly, border and backward District will at once say that District Poonch is ignored in developmental activities and it lags behind all other areas of the Jammu and Kashmir State. This can very easily be ascertained from the following facts.

(a) Road Connectivity : Take Jammu to Poonch road which has been taken up by the Border Road Organization to convert it in to ‘‘National Highway’’. The work on this road is in hand for the last many years. The construction agency has started earthwork in different segments and the pace of work is very slow. There are many traffic jams and halts during the rainy season and the passengers are put to great inconvience. The Experience shows that it may not be completed for many years to come and the dream of a good National Highway seen by the people of this district will not come true for ten years more. There are thousands and lacs of pits in the road and passengers traveling on this road from Jammu to Poonch or vice versa become. Unfit to do normal work for a week's time. Will the Government of Jammu and Kashmir and construction agency shall take the matter seriously and get the road completed kilo meter wise at the earliest possible ? Many accidents have taken place and precious lives have been lost due to bad condition of this road.

Same is the case of other roads leading to different villages or rural areas. Many villages are without road even after six decades of Independence. The road connectivity is the basic factor for the economic development of a particular area and it is the basic need of the people.

(b) Supply of Electricity : In all other Districts of the State 232 KV lines of electric supply have been provided, wheras only 33 KV Line comes to Poonch, but if the voltage part of the same is kept in view only 11 KV load reaches Poonch district and during peak hours it is even low. The Govt and administration say in loud voices that all the villages have been electrified but ground position is quie different. Many people have yet to see an electric lamp in their villages after laps of 60 years of independence. All the statistics is paper work and ground realities are quite different. Many villages remained cut of due to burning of transformers, repairs of lines and indifferent attitude of the staff. If at all the light comes with good luck of people, one has to see the electric lamp with the help of a candle or burning of K Oil lamp.

Then there are frequent curtailments, no proper schedule of load sheding is observed and people are made to pay monthly bills without the power supply such is the calous attitude of the Government towards the people of this District in this field.

(c) Safe Drinking water : The supply of the safe drinking water in this District is again a casualty. On the one hand no proper and regular supply is made and on the other hand whatever supply is made the water is so contaminated that hundreds of jaundice and diahorea case have been detected because these diseases are water bound diseases. No chloronation of PHE reservoirs is made, no repairs of supply lines is undertaken and one can see with open eyes pits of dirty water all over the district where the pipes are j bursted or where there are jonts of pipes. The dirty, muddy and contaminated water enters back into these pipes when those become empty at time of stopping of supply.

On some occasions snakes of small size have also come out of the tops which were shown to the adminstration but nothing has been done in this behalf. The supply of dirty and contaminated water is a common phenomena.

(d) District Hospital Poonch :- The building of District Hospital, Poonch was damaged in the earthquake of Oct 8, 2005. District Administration instead of phase-wise repairs has demolished the whole building which is not excepted to be restored or reconstructed in next 50 years, if the pace of construction work is kept in view.

The serious patients cannot be shifted to Jammu due bad condition of the road and there is no provision of admission and supervision by doctors at Poonch. The patients are asked to die without any medical advice and service. The patients die of the minor ailments which other wise are curable in modern times.

(e) Payment of earthquake relief to the victims : Proper distribution of relief was made during the days of this killer calamity and the cash relief for repairs/reconstruction of houses has also not been made properly. In some cases only one installment is paid and in some cases no amount is paid as yet.

The people living in custodian buildings have not been paid even a penny. They are asked to produce NOC from custodian department. It is a cruel joke with them they have lost whatever was with them and instead of helping them they are made to suffer further in administrative bunglings. Such people are needed to be helped immediately and such restrictions imposed upon them should in no case be imposed upon them. They should be provided cash relief so that they repair/reconstruct shelter on their heads to save them from fast approaching winter. They have already suffered in the winter of 2005-06.

North - East in darkness

By Sanchet Barua

The emerging political and economic contours in the north-east can be expected to worsen to a point that is completely unmanageable, unless urgent and imaginative steps are taken to address basic issues of security and development.

It is a great irony, and one that few know of, that the states of the North-East had among the highest per capita incomes in India at the time of Independence. Other states of Union have progressed, some of them enormously, but the "seven sisters" have been gravitating, gradually but inexorably, to the bottom of the basket. A region that has perhaps the largest surface water resources in the country is remarkable for the near complete absence of hydroelectric projects. There have been no significant advances in agriculture or industry. Even tea, a lucrative sector developed in the pre-Independence era is now tending to stagnation. The abundant forest wealth has, over large swathes of land, been recklessly over-exploited.

Militancy, has, of course, consumed many years development, but the rot goes much deeper. It is a long-standing grievance of the people that the North-East has been neglected by the Centre, and that is the cause of all its ills. The problem however, is not of neglect - the states in this region have received enormous developmental funding - but of lopsided planning and faulty implementation. A few major projects have been set up, such as the petrochemical projects in Assam, but the benefits accruing to the locals, and to the State's exchequer, are severely limited. Worse, there has been no integrated perspective on their further development. The whole of Assam was convulsed by the Refinery Agitation in the late '60s, but a perfectly legitimate demand for strengthening the petroleum sector in the State was ignored. It is flawed decisions like this that have transformed the oil industry in Assam into a source, not of prosperity, but of strife and resentment.

The "leakage" of developmental funds in this area, moreover, have remained at a higher level than it is in the rest of the country. Virtually all allocations for development and the limited wealth generated through commercial activities have either flowed out of the region or into the hands of a limited coterie of politicians, bureaucrats and contractors. There is no doubt whatsoever that the local elite and political leadership has comprehensively failed the people.

In the meanwhile, the region has remained cut off from the national mainstream, primarily as a result of the absence of a coherent perspective on development. Every monsoon brings flooding over large areas, and a complete disruption of surface transport. Communications in the region are, at best, rudimentary. Train services are yet to reach many areas, and the road network is skeletal. Telephones are available in and around just a few of the urban centres, and postal services are perhaps the worst in the country. The impact of the State's 'development' activities in the region has also tended, by the large, to be disruptive. In some measure, this is true in all parts of the country, as rapid industrialisation, deforestation and gigantic developmental projects have damaged the environment and displaced or disrupted the patterns of life of large populations.

It is, however, imperative to understand that specific and unique circumstances that prevail in the North-East region are far more vulnerable to the disruptive dynamics of 'development'. The people of the region have very strong tribal identities, and these are uncompromisingly linked to the traditional territorial autonomy of each tribe. Any displacement of tribal populations violates these identities and traditions, exacerbates historical rivalries, and inevitably, creates powerful conflict potentials.

Processes that bring about significant and unregulated inflows of populations from outside the region have consequences that can prove, and in the past have proven, even more disastrous. The people of the region also have strong tribal institutions and systems of organisation that are far more equitable and democratic, on the one hand, and based on concepts of collective responsibility and cooperation as opposed to competitive ownership, on the other. The abrupt induction of the market economy and the imposition of purely monetised and commercial relations undermine and destroy these institutions and systems, even as they expose these populations to unbridled exploitation as a result of their lack of familiarity with monetised trade and exclusionary private ownership. Since property rights and relations are largely traditional and undocumented, the sudden extension of the concept of commercial ownership of assets has resulted in massive expropriation of resources to which these populations have enjoyed traditional rights of use. The immeasurable conflict potential of these changes can well be imagined.

The alternative is not some sort of 'museum model' that attempts to 'preserve' these cultures in isolation from the rest of the world. Rather, it implies dynamic development on patterns that are compatible with local conditions. Projects in this region must also address the overwhelming popular cynicism that government interventions evoke in this region. And they must be non-invasive; they may destroy the integrity of existing socio-cultural patterns and lifestyles unless they can provide distinctly superior and equitable systems of production, management and interaction.

While a harmonious and locally relevant pattern of development would go a long way in preventing the emergence of new areas and cause of conflict, it is a myth that mere developmental spending can provide a 'solution' to existing strife. Pumping in funds into regions characterised by large-scale civil unrest has long been the bureaucratic 'formula' of resolution. Predictably, it has mainly enriched a politician-bureaucrat-contractor nexus and financed corruption, but has never had an impact to target populations. In the same way, ad hoc increases in force levels and panic sanctions of concomitant 'security' expenditure that have been standard reactions to incidents of extreme violence, provide no solution, nor do they constitute an efficient use of scarce resources. Indeed, they have been, and will remain, an absolute waste of funds, efforts, and precious lives.

A comprehensive security perspective needs to be defined for the states of the North-East. There is a 'peace dividend' on investments in an efficient and enduring security apparatus that far outstrips returns on any other kind of investment; indeed, no developmental strategy can succeed in the region without a long term strategy of security and peace. To create such an apparatus and define an appropriate strategy, a detailed study is required of existing and potential conflicts, of ways of preventing, managing and resolving these conflicts, and of reducing their impact on the day to day lives of the people of the region. Needless to day, no such study has ever been attempted.

If official has, from time to time, succeeded in redressing some local grievances, this is largely because of the individual sagacity of a particular leader or bureaucrat. For the most part, however, governments have just 'muddled through'. For the bureaucracy at the Centre, the North-East has always been, and remains, 'an area of darkness'. But the darkness is not of this beautiful land or its people; it is of their own ignorance and prejudice; it lies in their own minds. (INAV)

Story of Musharraf's 'love'
TALES OF TRAVESTY

By Dr. Jitendra Singh

Anybody who goes through Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's recently published autobiography "In the line of fire'' is bound to end up with the conclusion that this man was always nursing a crush for one or the other girl or woman till atleast as long he entered into a formal wedlock with wife Sheeba. The shrewd General has cleverly avoided dwelling on his post-marital or extra-marital conquests.

Now there is nothing new or exciting about these accounts. However, what one fails to understand is what precisely the author wishes to achieve by narrating details about what he rightly or wrongly describes as his love affairs. Is the General turned politician trying to don the apparently self-confessional mantle of Mahatma Gandhi's ''My Experiments with truth'' and thus trying to prove that he has nothing to hide and that he is ready to share every little detail of his personal life? Or, is he trying to project himself as an eternal romantic whose unsuccessful forays spell poetry? In both the cases, the General is far from being convincing. Unlike Gandhi, Musharraf lets out only those little bits of his personal life which suit him and conveniently sleeps over all that would not show him in a flattering vein. And, neither does Musharraf come out as a romantic because his self-confessed fondness for the women he came in contact qualifies neither as a feeling of serious love nor as of an act of light flirtation.

Perhaps Mr. Pervez Musharraf is inspired by the famous love accounts of some of his predecessor politicians from the subcontinent and could not resist attempting some ''soft'' supplementation to his politically loaded dry narration. But, if that be the case, again the General's socalled love affairs come out as poor caricatures in the background of some widely written affairs like for example the mutually self-effacing relationship shared by Jawaharlal Nehru and Lady Edwina Mountbatten or Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's unrequited feeling for actress Nargis.

To dwell on Musharraf's controversial political views in the book would go beyond the purview of this brief write-up. But one wonders whether the General has in any way succeeded achieving his unspoken objective of seeking legitimacy with Pakistani masses and the Pak military junta on the one hand and on the other hand with his patrons in Washington and whether his self-styled romantic portrayals help in furthering his designs. Between the lines, nevertheless, the book inadvertently exposes the intrinsic personality of the author who comes forth as a man of ordinary human traits who has rather done remarkably well for himself in life by exploiting to his advantage Pakistan's vulnerable social-political system.

Even though the autobiography ''In the Line of Fire'' may make some quick buck, sooner than later the astute General is bound to realise that the story of his young age love initiatives has ended as unrewarded as the initiatives themselves. To the common reader, the inference is that young Pervez was perpetually inconsistent with his pursuits which he gave up on flimsy grounds like in one case his family moved out of the girl's neighbourhood and in another case the girl's family moved out to the then East Pakistan. To be more charitable, Umapathy could rather sum it up gracefully for the Hon'ble President with a philosophical retreat '' Kabhi Dag-Magai Kashti, Kabhi Kho Gaya Kinaara!''.

Guerrilla warfare

By Fazal Mehmood

The Army Chief General J J Singh has deputed Brigadier B K Ponwal, who was the Chief Instructor at the Jungle Warfare School (CIJWS) of the Army in Mizoram to the Jungle Terrorism and Jungle Warfare College at Kanker in Chhattisgarh. Brigadier Ponwal is a 1971 war veteran and has seen counter-insurgency operations in Punjab and Assam. He was in-charge of the joint Indo-US troop training.

The need for such a school was felt after the Chhattisgarh government sent 120 policemen to train at the Counter Insurgency and Jungle Warfare School (CIJWS) at Vairengte in Mizoram in 2004.

The institute has asked the government for 5,000 AK-47s, multi-barrel grenade launchers and helicopters to fight Maoists or Naxalites, who have established complete control over nine states stretching from Bihar to Maharashtra.

They control 92,000 sq km from Gadchhiroli in Maharashtra to Abujmarh in Chhattisgrah. Even the prime minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, at the chief ministers' conference in the Capital admitted that 160 districts across the country are slipping out of government control. He reiterated that the Maoist problem has assumed proportions bigger than militancy in J&K and insurgency in the Northeast due to its sheer spread and organised linkages. In view of the deteriorating law and order situation in Chhattisgarh the Union home minister, Shivaraj Patil, sought the help of Mr KPS Gill, the former director general of Punjab Police, who was responsible for terminating insurgency in the border state.

The first lesson taught to policemen here is to throw away their 1940s musket-rifles and pick up AK-47s. Even SLRs are out of the syllabi because they are non-functional in active combat situations.

During their five-week course at the college, policemen are given rigorous training in guerrilla warfare. The training camp, spread over 40-acres, has no buildings, just 40 tents. Trainees here live in the open in the dense jungles of Bastar and learn to kill king-cobras for dinner.

Official estimates peg the armed Maoist cadres at about 10,000, and over-ground workers to be around 45,000. Security experts say the numbers are much higher. What lends Maoists a deadly edge is the fact that they are armed with modern weaponry - AK-47s, IEDS (improvised explosive devices), INSAS rifles and SLRS. Last year, they claimed as many as 700 lives. That's more deaths than in Jammu and Kashmir and the Northeast put together. It's just been nine months in 2006, but the Naxals have already killed 176 persons, including security personnel and civilians.

How did things come to this pass? One reason is that, since law and order is a state subject, the Centre's all along tried to keep its role minimal - stepping in only to supervise and help with additional forces and finances. And though the government roots for popular 'uprisings' against Maoists, security and intelligence experts are critical of such government-backed vigilante groups like the Salwa Judum (SJ), which has had a controversial run ever since it was set up in Chhattisgarh last year. The critics think that the tribals who form the SJ are being used as cannon fodder and becoming targets of the Maoists. The adivasis are only being forced into a spiral of messy violence.

The home ministry has asked the Chhattisgarh government to stop the SJ till it can consolidate the group and arm them better. However, if the SJ experiment succeeds there, then it will be replicated elsewhere. Meanwhile, the Naxal affected states have also been asked to fill the vacancies in their police force. Chhattisgarh has 4,000 such, while Bihar has as many as 20,000.

There is equal scepticism over the suggestion of a coordinated approach among states. A joint task force between two states to catch one thug like Veerappan failed.

Finally, police from one state succeeded in killing him only by keeping their plans secret from the other. How does the government expect nine states to work together? The solution, according to him, is for the Centre to have a greater role in tackling the problem - gathering more intelligence and providing better service condition to the state police force engaged in fighting the Naxal menace.

If the Maoists are allowed a free run for any longer period it will have a debilitating country-wide impact as insurgent plan to set up commands in other states of the Union, which will mean more violence not only in the country side but even in urban centres.

Economic development of the Naxal infected region should be accorded top priority as to wean away the youth joining insurgents. This job should be directly controlled by a panel of experts who should periodically report to the Union home ministry. Needless to emphasise that economic deprivation drives people to militancy; and the tribal population in the country is the poorest amongst the poor. INAV

Child abuse

By Sweta Patwardhan

The government has banned the child labour without any impact. The Child labour Act only bans child labour in specific industries and has actually helped put more children to work rather than get them out of it.

There are alarming statistics to prove this. While official figures put the number of working children at 1.7 crore, according to child rights activists, the actual figure is 20 crore, of which 20 lakh work in hazardous environments, namely mines and factories. And less than half of India's 43 crore children go to school. If Article 21-A of the Constitution talks of providing free and compulsory education for children below the age of 14, how can this coexist with child labour?

The government has been celebrating Children's Day on November 14 for the last 41- years with children film festivals and other tokenisms. But the story of the Indian child has been unfolding more and more like the pages of a horror story.

Child labour is but one of the problems for areas likes Manipur. Monti Ahanthem, director, institute for Research and Social Development, Imphal, points to trafficking of young girls as another assault on childhood. "Each year some 40 girls disappear from Manipur. Not a single girl has ever returned. And amid the chaos of a conflict zone, there is little the community can do to prevent their exodus."

Another area child activists grapple with in conflict zones is care of HIV-positive orphans whose parents have died of AIDS. Ahanthem acknowledges the problem is his state. "With a measly Rs 9 per child allocated for children in institutional care, there is no special institutional care for HIV-positive children in the state," he says. J&K too, with its history of militancy, has "virtually no infrastructure for institutional care" for its over 1,20,000 orphans, 80,000 of whom are from the Valley, as Rauf Muhammad, an activist from Srinagar, says.

Children in conflict zones, as both Rauf and Ahanthem point out, also fall prey to the army and militant groups who use them as workers or carriers. Or worse, as spies. "The lure of petty cash, coupled with the easy availability of drugs, is enough to attract them, many of whom become addicts," says Ahanthem. Rauf states that in J&K, "there are several cases of young boys falling into the trap of the army or the various militant outfits". He cites the example of a Kashmiri youth who's been detained since 1993 in Tihar jail. "He was booked under TADA, and family members say he was just 14 when the army picked him up." While the Juvenile Justice Act very clearly states that children cannot be put behind bars, it is not applicable in J&K. With no help from the law, Rauf's been persuading imams in J&K to spread awareness of child rights through their regular discourses.

Ahanthem and Rauf were among the dozens of people working in the field of child rights, who were in Delhi recently to attend the National Consultation on Justice For Children, organised by voluntary organisation CRY. The conference also highlighted the loopholes in laws that are supposed to protect and enforce child rights. As advocate Mahrukh Addenwala observed, "Child rights in not a soft issue. Money is made out of children and that's why laws are constantly being challenged at every step."

Speaking of laws, Tamali Sen Gupta of the Human Rights and Legal Awareness Society points out that despite India ratifying the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1992, which makes it mandatory for states to take affirmative action in protecting children from all forms of exploitation and abuse, Indian laws are inadequate to define, identify and punish offences against children, or to protect them against sexual abuse. Ironically, the Juvenile Justice Act 2000 deals primarily with children in conflict with the law and their rehabilitation, and makes no attempt to identify the sexual abuse children are subjected to.

This when India has - by conservative estimates - 4-5 lakh child prostitutes. A large number of them are brought from Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Manipur, and put to work in Mumbai, Delhi and Goa. About 44,000 children are reported missing in India every year as per NHRC-UNIFEM Action Research data and trafficking in women and children in India 2002-2003. Of these, some 11,000 children continue to remain untraced. Most end up in brothels. These grim statistics, however, have provoked grossly inadequate punitive action. Over the five-year block period of 1997-2001, only 65,602 persons were arrested under the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act. Traffickers, transporters, brothel owners, clients and other such exploiters are largely untouched by the law, as prosecution is negligible, says Tamali.

Almost all countries have laws in tune with a modern conception of child rights. The UK's Sexual Offences Act 2003 deals comprehensively with child rights, and offers them strong protection against exploitation and abuse. The US has several laws relating to offences against children. Sri Lanka, Thailand and Malaysia have adopted specific legislation to protect and enforce child rights. Is India going to continue to tackle its growing problem of child rights with syrupy platitudes and token ceremonies? INAV