Union of India

Inter-caste marriages may one day ensure that people no longer caste their vote

Union of India

-The Times of India, February 1, 2012

Through an example of his 23-year-old Oriya domestic helper, Maya, and her marriage with a Punjabi Sikh, Jug Suraiya argues that the ongoing caste-based politics may in a few years find no takers due to such inter-caste marital links that promote integration as opposed to division.

"Will such marital links help one day to bridge the barrier of caste and region and promote integration? If they do, the Indian Union will truly come into its own, thanks to unions of another sort."

'This is the first audience where so many mom said - i get it!'

Q&A


with Amy Chua, John M Duff professor of law at Yale University - and top ranking academic and legal theorist. She is also the author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother; a treatise on parenting that emphasizes tight control on children's lives, diverse kinds of discipline and restrictions (including no boyfriends or sleepovers for Chua's teenage daughters - who had to practice the piano even on holiday) and pushing one's children hard to excel.

She speaks about shocked responses, what parenting means to her 0 and how Indian mothers 'get it' right away.

Interview - Q&A

-The Times of India, February 1, 2012

Exit At Any Cost?

The US's attempt to engage the Taliban is fraught with risk for Afghanistan

Exit At Any Cost?

-The Times of India, February 1, 2012

While the Taliban have agreed to hold talks with "the world" through an office in Qatar, the US, it seems, has no idea as to where the talks will lead them, as was honestly uttered by the secretary of state Hillary Clinton.

"The Obama administration is willing to hand over five Taliban commanders currently in Guantanamo Bay as a "confidence-building measure" without significant concessions in return."

How is Afghanistan going to be effected in the wake of current circumstances? Especially when Pakistan's role is an additional "dark mystery."

Baby, Battered

Who takes care of abandoned children?

Baby, Battered

-The Times of India, February 1, 2012

The story of children in India is not to the least encouraging. The two-year-old Falak, who was brutally bruised and battered now fights for survival in AIIMS.

The case of Falak echoes the plight of many a children who are either abandoned, trafficked, or sold in sex trade. In fact, to highlight the gory fact, the number of such cases have risen, "notwithstanding countless laws passed to protect them."

"This large-scale abuse and neglect of children has to end. But the question is: Should we leave the problem to the state to resolve it?"

The answer may well lie in an approach that involves both state and non-state agencies.  

From food security to food justice

"A quarter of a million women in Kerala are showing us how to earn livelihoods with dignity."

The Indian elite shrieks at the prospect of formalising a universal right to food. Notwithstanding the collective moral deficit this reveals, it also shows that the millions of Indians whose food rights are so flagrantly violated are completely voiceless in the policy space. India's problem is not only to secure food, but to secure food justice. The Hindu : Opinion / Lead : From food security to food justice.

 The experiment, "Sangha Krishi" or group farming, is part of Kerala's anti-poverty programme "Kudumbashree", initiated as a means to enhance local food production. These collectives lease fallow land, rejuvenate it, farm it and then either sell the produce or use it for consumption, depending on the needs of members. It is not a mere ‘project' or a ‘programme' but a social space where marginalised women can collectively pursue their needs and aspirations.

Kudumbashree office-bearers are elected, a crucial process for its members. These elections bring women into politics. And they bring with them a different set of values that can change politics. These groups are linked to state at village level and thus ensures that local development reflects the needs and aspirations of communities, who are not reduced to mere 'executors' of government programmes.  It is transforming the socio-political space that women inhabit — who in turn transform that space in vital ways.

Is this a sustainable, replicable model of food security? It is certainly one worth serious analysis!

Break The Stress

Common engineering entrance exam brings a whiff of education reform

Break The Stress

-The Times of India, February 1, 2012

The Union HRD ministry's decision to develop a common "aptitude-cum-advanced knowledge test by 2013," which, in effect, replaces the IIT and AIEEE exams, "is an innovative move."

The existing scenario makes for a strenuous time for students as they are found writing three to five entrance exams in order to make the cut. Furthermore, the number of lives being lost to exam-related stress has been deeply worrying, in which case, the new reform is welcome since it focuses on creativity and aptitude, and not on cramming the most material available.

    

Ninety days too many

"The three-month deadline set by the Supreme Court for grant of sanction to prosecute corrupt officials is a step forward, but why not do away with prior sanction altogether?"

The apex court directive that the sanction for prosecuting a public servant under the Prevention of Corruption Act 1988 should come within three months of a request from an investigation agency is a shot in the arm for all those standing for probity in public life. Also welcome is the ruling that every citizen has a fundamental right to file a complaint under the PC Act. The Hindu : Opinion / Op-Ed : Ninety days too many.

Many governments in the past had been holding on to a request without passing any orders or by raising a few inane questions to the CBI to delay the whole process and to help a favourite civil servant in the docks, who was not only personally dishonest but was a man ‘who knew too much'!

This direction by Supreme court makes severe inroads into the Executive's discretion and capacity to protect corrupt elements in government. However, a question allied to the apex court decision is whether the Executive enjoys absolute authority to refuse or accord sanction. This is a serious lacuna in the drive against corruption. A dishonest public servant can and will be protected by a government that used him in dishonest adventures.


Public opinion should prevail upon the Lok Sabha that the requirement for government sanction should be dispensed with. Only this would take the fight against corruption one step further in the right direction..!

R. K. Raghavan,the author, is a former CBI Director.

India's stake in Arctic cold war

"Will it be the next geopolitical battleground or remain the common heritage of humankind?"

It is estimated that the arctic region may hold over 40% of the current global reserves of oil and gas. There may also be significant reserves of coal, zinc and silver.  The Hindu : Opinion / Op-Ed : India's stake in Arctic cold war: Arctic shipping routes will cut global shipping routes by several thousand kms. All these increase the geopolitical importance of the Northern Tier countries.

The sharpening tensions arising out of long-standing territorial disputes among the Arctic countries are also a consequence of the prospects of significant economic and strategic gains. What happens in the Arctic may well trigger a negative change in the Antarctic.

The distribution of the world's critical resources would be drastically rearranged. The geopolitical centre of gravity may well swing back from the Asia-Pacific to the trans-Atlantic. Is the world on the threshold of a new geopolitical contest, centred on the warming waters of the Arctic?

It is ironic that while on the one hand the world is grappling with global warming triggered by climate change, the world's major powers are scrambling to profit from its consequences in the fragile Arctic zone. The ongoing multilateral negotiations on climate change under the U.N. may soon become irrelevant.

The Arctic Ocean is as much a “global commons” as is the Antarctica. Non-Arctic countries need to assert their right to have their say in the management of the Arctic. India should mobilise international public opinion in favour of declaring the Arctic a common heritage of mankind and sponsoring an international legal regime on the lines of the 1959 Antarctic Treaty, where the territorial claims of states have been shelved for the duration of the Treaty. Placing this on the U.N. agenda during India's term in the Security Council and initiating international action on it could be a historic contribution by India in its role as a responsible global power.

Shyam Saran, the author, is a former Foreign Secretary. He is currently Chairman, RIS, and Senior Fellow, CPR.

Russia blames radiation for space probe failure

"An unmanned Russian probe was planned to visit the Mars moon of Phobos, take soil samples and bring them back. But it became stuck in Earth orbit."

The Hindu : Opinion / Op-Ed : Russia blames radiation for space probe failure: "Russia's space agency said that cosmic radiation was the most likely cause of the failure of a Mars moon probe that crashed to Earth this month, and suggested that a low-quality imported component may have been vulnerable to the radiation."

Prosecution, power, principle

"Section 19 of the Prevention of Corruption Act prevents courts from taking cognizance of offences allegedly committed by a public servant without prior sanction of the government. Such provisions were conceived to ensure that public servants are not harassed and their work not stymied by vexatious and frivolous complaints."

In practice, these protective measures have functioned as a shield against prosecution, encouraging dishonest to flout the law with impunity. The Hindu : Opinion / Editorial : Prosecution, power, principle: Should prior sanction be required to prosecute public servants at all? Surely, the decision about whether a particular prosecution is vexatious or not is better left to the judiciary.

The idea that the law must differ for public servants and private citizens is an anachronism, one that has no basis in principle and has no defence in practice.

On a wing and a prayer

"The Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC) faces many serious problems in a situation complicated by violence, tribalism and hatreds, old and new. "

There are complaints about the Council's lack of openness. The lack of central control means former rebels have inflicted revenge killings, torture, for aiding the old Qadhafi regime's forces. Racism may also be a factor. Those problems by themselves could seem intractable enough, but the Council also has to contend with obstacles to the revival of the oil industry. The Hindu : Opinion / Editorial : On a wing and a prayer

In effect, Libya could easily slide back into the chaotic violence which preceded Qadhafi's overthrow. Nato that embarked upon regime change in Libya with no apparent consideration of the consequences or of the fact that ordinary Libyans would end up paying the price for its heedlessness. If things implode, the Western powers will have a lot to answer for.

Pet-iquette

Maneka Gandhi, MP from BJP and Animal's rights activist in her interview to DNA confesses that hormones and antibiotics are injected to cows that can have an adverse affect on us, the end consumers...

Read more of the same by clicking on the link below:

http://www.dnaindia.com/analysis/comment_pet-iquette-most-cows-milk-have-pesticides_1643677

Punjab polls

The state of Punjab is known for it's prosperity and the green lush...

The Indian granary and the foothold of the former green revolution (which has now turned into a sense of disaster) still produces the largest amount of rice in the country with good wheat production also...

But, the main question is, is it really prosperous?

"No, it isn't" says Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jr.

Punjab Polls and the problems of prosperity

Gujarat Lokayukta

When the Gujarat Lokayukta was appointed by the governor of the state as an obligation to the parliamentary democracy, Narendra Modi, under the facade of the Gujarat Government challenged the same as illegal in the high court lost the case and turned out to be a huge humiliation for the Gujarat government that had bragged about setting high parliamentary standards...

"This is how federal structure works", believes eminent lawyer and human rights activist, Girish Patel...

Lokayukta: Political agenda with legal overtones

Bums with cushioned seats

Anna Zeidi, goes on to explore the mentality of women keeping the situations that occur in the Mumbai local train...

She explores the "class" divide that is still so prevalent in our pseudo-modern Indian society...

Bums with cushioned seats