BJP won't back Pranab or Ansari Special Correspondent Breaking its silence on the presidential election, the BJP

has announced that it will not support either of the two choices of the Congress Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and VicePresident Hamid Ansari. The Congress, which has initiated consultations with its allies, has indicated its preference for either of them. Sources in the party said that if need be, in exchange for support to its presidential candidate, it would agree to a vice-presidential candidate from the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA). The name that Congress sources offered on Monday was that of Shiromani Akali Dal chief Parkash Singh Badal. The presidential election in July will be followed by the vice-presidential election in August. The BJP would very much like to see Mr. Badal as Vice-President, but certainly not as part of a deal with the Congress. The main Opposition party disclosed the broad parameters which would guide its strategy, after a meeting of the party brass in Parliament House. As things stand, the BJP would neither propose a candidate of its choice nor strike a deal with the Congress, under which it would have to back its presidential candidate as a quid pro quo for that party's support to the vice-presidential nominee. Leader of the Opposition Sushma Swaraj said the Samajwadi Party had put out feelers mentioning the name of the former President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. We will support him if Dr. Kalam is willing to contest. Ms. Swaraj said the BJP would not back the candidature of Mr. Mukherjee as he was an active Congress leader or that of Mr. Ansari as he did not have the stature. Explaining the rationale behind the party's decision, she said: We are looking at the 2014 elections Don't speculate: Pranab When journalists asked Mr Mukherjee whether he was emerging as the consensus candidate, he said: Oh my goodness...oh my goodness... Don't indulge in any speculation, he said smiling, when asked whether his name was discussed during Defence Minister A. K. Antony's meeting with DMK chief M. Karunanidhi in Chennai on Sunday. ========================================== Sign nuclear non-proliferation treaty, Japan tells India Sandeep Dikshit Japan on Monday asked India to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) even as the two sides decided to reopen talks on a bilateral civil nuclear agreement. During the sixth Foreign Minister-level strategic dialogue here, the two sides agreed to prepare a master plan for the industrial development of south India, especially areas around Chennai and Bangalore, and accelerate talks on export of rare earths to Japan.

Another decision was to extend their dialogue to a code of conduct in outer space, cyber security and maritime issues, including security and freedom of navigation in the South China Sea. The talks also covered Japanese investment in high speed trains, the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor and the Dedicated Freight Corridor. While agreeing to step up interaction between the Coast Guards, India and Japan decided to hold their first-ever maritime exercises towards the middle of the year. New Delhi and Tokyo agreed to resume their dialogue on a civil nuclear agreement but the initial reaction from the principal interlocutors Foreign Ministers S.M. Krishna and Koichiro Gemba suggested that both sides were sticking to their earlier positions India insisting that its nonproliferation behaviour was impeccable enough to warrant the inking of the pact and Japan wanting India to comply with its promise of a ban on further nuclear testing made in the run-up to a clearance by the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). A joint statement, after the Fifth Energy dialogue held earlier in the day, indicated that despite the sentiments expressed by the Foreign Ministers, both sides were maintaining positions that were some distance from being reconciled. The statement mentioned in detail prospects of cooperation and ongoing projects in all segments but civil nuclear agreement. Japan is asking India to join the NPT the Foreign Ministers instructed the negotiators to hold talks Japan views India as a partner with which it should pursue civil nuclear agreement, there is no doubt [about] it, said Japanese sources after the official round of talks and a courtesy call by Mr. Gemba on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. We have instructed our negotiators on the way forward, Mr. Krishna said and added the two countries understood the concerns of each other which were related to their historic experiences. Officials explained this to mean that while India says its clean non-proliferation record was good enough to restart civil nuclear talks, Japan feels that since India is not a signatory to the NPT, it should demonstrate its commitment to a ban on testing in words. On maritime dialogue, Mr. Gemba said, India is actually situated at an important place on the sea lanes of the communication which links Japan with the Middle East. So, I cannot overlook the geo-political significance of the location of India. Japanese companies have a virtual monopoly on supplying reactor vessels, a critical component of civil nuclear plants. Officials in the past said that without an India-Japan civil nuclear agreement, Japanese origin firms might not be able to supply components to French and American companies which had won orders to instal nuclear plants in India. On the trade front, India has extended the validity of an earlier agreement to supply two million tonnes of iron ore per year. It will thus retain its foothold in the Japanese market despite supply disruptions due to court rulings and higher taxes. There is also domestic unease over exporting primary commodities that has led to India slipping from its position as the world's top iron exporter to the third place. Ahead of the strategic dialogue, the External Affairs Ministry had said the two sides would review all aspects of the bilateral strategic and global partnership and discuss regional and international issues of mutual interest. The talks were sandwiched between high-level consultations with the U.S. a summit-level Japan-U.S. meeting took place last month and India and the U.S. will hold their Foreign Ministerlevel strategic dialogue next week.

============================================= Unabated violence endangers Syrian ceasefire Atul Aneja The fate of the ceasefire in Syria continues to hang in the balance with neither the government nor the opposition demonstrating the will to halt sporadic violence. On Monday, the Syrian regime was quick to point a finger at the opposition saying it was in full breach of the ceasefire agreement laid out by Kofi Annan, the United Nations and Arab League envoy to Syria. The state-run news agency, SANA, reported that in the city of Idlib, not far from the Turkish border, twin suicide car bombings had heavily damaged buildings near the state intelligence compound. The explosions killed 20 people, said the London-based Syrian Observatory of Human Rights, and SANA reported that 100 were wounded. Graphic images of Monday's attack were beamed by the pro-government Al-Ekhbariya television station. Video footage showed smashed cars, debris and pavements stained with blood. The facade of a multi-storey building had been blown out, while four other structures had suffered heavy damage. The government attributed the attack to armed terrorists a term routinely ascribed to the armed opposition. However, no group has claimed responsibility for the attacks so far. In yet another attack on a state bastion, rocket-propelled grenades on Sunday targeted the Central Bank building in Damascus. While only four security personnel were injured, the attack was of symbolic significance. An oil pipeline was also attacked on Sunday in the eastern city of Dier ez-Zor. While no independent confirmation was possible because of restrictions imposed on journalists, the frequency of suicide bombings in Syria seem to be on the rise evoking memories of the situation in neighbouring Iraq in the aftermath of the U.S.-led invasion. On Friday, a suicide bomber killed 11 people and injured dozens in Damascus. The opposition blames the government of flouting the ceasefire. Al Jazeera is reporting that government forces have since Saturday launched military offensives in areas close to the Turkish and Lebanese borders. These assaults have followed attempts by a militant group to launch attacks from the coastal zone around Latakia, Syria's largest port city. The Lebanese intelligence has also intercepted a ship bearing three containers full of Libyan heavy machine guns, shells, rockets, rocket launchers and other explosives. The Lebanese claim that the cargo was intended for the opposition Free Syria Army. Analysts say if Lebanese claims are confirmed, the Syrian opposition's commitment to Mr. Annan's plan would be seriously questioned. With the prospects of the ceasefire holding in the grey zone, Major General Robert Mood, the head of the U.N. monitoring mission in Syria, arrived in Damascus on Monday. He is not a stranger to Syria as he had, in 2009-11, served as the head of the U.N. Truce Supervision Organisation, which monitors ceasefires in West Asia. The Norwegian veteran is pursuing a plan meant to ensure that 300 U.N. monitors are deployed in Syria. The 15-member monitoring team that is currently in Syria is located in the trouble-torn cities of Homs, Hama, Idlib, and Derra as well as the Damascus suburbs. =========================================

Regulating cultures through food policing Kalpana Kannabiran The controversy over the Beef Festival recently organised on the campus of Osmania University in Hyderabad and the threat of professors being investigated by the police for instigating the organisers needs to be understood in the context of the larger politics of food and policing of food practices. Across the country, different communities in different regions have widely varying food habits. It is also well known that food is closely linked to ideas of the sacred and the profane and must vary along the scale of social diversity. The dense nesting of beliefs related to food extends from what vegetables may be consumed, whether meat may be consumed or not, which kinds of meats are food and which not, which kinds of meat are deemed vegetarian, and whether animal products come within the definition of meat or not. Ideas about eating Ideas about food also extend to who can eat together; within a family, who consumes which parts of an animal's body; what is the sequence in which people in a family eat, depending on gender, generation and social status; whether vice chancellors, judges and peons can partake of the same feast at the same time or in earlier times or even today in more self declaredly caste ridden locales whether the chuhri can even dare to ask for fresh cooked food from chowdhriji to recall Omprakash Valmiki's Joothan. And further in the caste context, who must not be sighted by a Brahmin man while he is in the vulnerable state of ingesting food the shudra, a menstruating woman, pigs, dogs all to be equally banished from sight. Because food is surrounded by thick religiosity, there are days and times of the year and cycles in a month or in a reproductive lifetime when certain foods are proscribed and others mandatory. There are also rigid rules around the slaughter of animals and the preparation of meat for consumption meat consumers do not eat all meats and do not eat the same meat at any place. The acceptance of meat as food is determined by whether the slaughter of the animal has been appropriate. And there are castes who were condemned to eat only carrion, not animals freshly slaughtered for consumption. There are communities in Andhra that share the hunt with the tiger they believe the tiger leaves enough of its prey for its human kin with a delicate balance in mutual food security in the deep forests. When religions proscribe the killing of animals, communities of believers who live in hostile and difficult mountainous terrain may drive a herd off a cliff and strip and dry the meat to meet a year's supply of meat. Even with people and communities that eat meat, there are places and times when meat may be eaten and these vary widely as well. While a religious occasion for some may be marked by the abstinence from meat, for others it is marked by the sacrifice of an animal, its ceremonial preparation and its distribution in a prescribed manner among kin. Attitude Ideas of purity, danger, potency, malevolence, uncleanness, tastes (not individual but social) and aesthetics thickly overlay our attitude to food. Faint hearted but brahmanical consumers of meat can swoon or get terribly sick at the sight of a butcher at work, or the sight of unclean parts of the animal body entrails, head, hooves and so on. The same could be the case with lovers of fish when they see a beach overlaid with dry, pungent fish or the baskets of fish vendors on the train on their way to the market. Similarly too, it is not uncommon to find strong negative reactions to snake gourd, bitter gourd, and several other vegetables, not to speak of cooking oils from vegetarians. There are of course caste hierarchies in vegetables and oils too. Its life giving and life sustaining quality also makes food the medium through which faith is expressed, through sharing on particular auspicious, festive occasions. Whom food is shared with and how is determined by status and social location ranging from poor feeding to mutual exchanges of festive food. There is then the renunciation of certain foods as acts of faith

(temporarily or permanently) or as an acknowledgement of loss and mourning. It is not uncommon to hear of people giving up their favourite food on the death of a loved one. And of course giving up food is a way of renouncing life itself. Change in habits There are also histories of food habits that show that they change over time: the beef eating Vedic brahmin is a well known example. Among the meats that are consumed in India are chicken, goat, fish and other aquatic creatures, frog, dog, pork, monkey, beef, buffalo, a variety of insects, field rats, deer, a range of birds, some reptiles and many, many more. Across this entire range of food, there are some we might love and relish, and others we might recoil at the mention of. What we relish and what we find unthinkable depends on religion, caste, tribe, and social location, after which individual taste plays a role. The diversity in food habits is part of the plurality of cultures and the right to consume, accept and share food, privately and in festivity, is part of cultural expression. To the extent that culture is a matter of politics, food becomes the mobilising point for politics. The ubiquitous blessed food that believers partake in at places of worship now gets distributed in street-corners to believers and non-believers alike in every neighbourhood. This is part of an aggressive proclamation of religiosity demanding acceptance as an act of faith from all often spreading tension that has the police in full force out on the streets for days. We have sizeable communities in India who eat beef and pork and these are the two meats on the Indian subcontinent that are used to stoke collective emotions in ways that present polarised stereotypes. Yet we know that the realities of beef and pork consumption defy these stereotypes. There is, however, a distinction between the two: beef is traditionally consumed not just by nonHindus but by subaltern castes as well, a reality that is denied by the dominant castes. In this context, if there is a hegemonic cultural formation across or within a religious group that proscribes or stigmatises the consumption of certain kinds of foods, a central part of resistance and of cultural assertion is to share that food publicly. Acquiescing to one proscription will pave the way for another, and the intolerance to diversity in food habits and through food to plural cultures will spiral upwards. The choice of whether or not to partake of the feast is one an individual makes. In the recent beef festival organised on the campus of Osmania University, there were no reports of any coercion or force-feeding of beef to unwilling people. The people who were there went because they wanted to be there and were people for whom beef was not taboo. The argument on the need to take action against spreading hatred can scarcely be sustained. Even more irrelevant is the suggestion that professors were instigating students it was a gathering of consenting, free thinking adults. The organising of a food festival is not a matter for courts to interfere with or order an investigation into. There are more pressing matters related to life and liberty that wait endlessly to get a hearing. (The author is Professor and Director, Council for Social Development, Hyderabad. Email: kalpana.kannabiran@gmail.com) ============================================ Perks for life Former Speakers are seeking special perks. And the Central government seems to be in a

generous mood. According to former Lok Sabha Speaker P.A. Sangma, as reported in the media on Monday, in-principle approval has been accorded to his proposal to extend the perquisites and privileges now reserved for former Presidents, Vice-Presidents, and Prime Ministers to former Speakers of the Lok Sabha. The rationale for seeking this largesse, if at all there is one, is that the Speaker is the only constitutional authority Number Six in the Warrant of Precedence or the protocol list who does not enjoy special perquisites after the conclusion of his or her term. Former Speakers, at present, are entitled only to pension and ordinary benefits that are also available to all former Members of Parliament. If anything, the argument should be for dropping or curbing the special perks which come with retirement from all constitutional posts and not for adding more former office-holders to the list. The reason high office comes with privileges is because they make it easier for the incumbent to do the job. Logically, therefore, the privileges of office should end with the term in office. This is the way it is in virtually every democracy. Of course, the state has a continuing duty to provide security, where threats exist, and secretarial assistance. But few countries barring India provide homes and motor cars to retired Presidents or Prime Ministers, let alone Speakers, for the rest of their lives. President Pratibha Patil moved quickly and correctly to quell a snowballing controversy by foregoing the Pune retirement home which was to be constructed for her on land owned by the Defence Ministry. Rashtrapati Bhavan refuted what it said were fallacious observations about the home that had been made in the media. At the same time, ordinary people are inclined to see any special benefits extended to former constitutional functionaries as excessive. Though MPs and Ministers compare themselves with bureaucrats while seeking retirement benefits, government servants retire after 30 or more years of service, and not five years like MPs. If former Speakers are granted the privileges they reportedly are seeking, it would only be a matter of time before former Deputy Chairpersons of the Rajya Sabha or former Deputy Speakers of the Lok Sabha demand similar perks and benefits. And why should the poor Speakers of all our State Assemblies be left behind? The issue goes beyond the cost or scale of this exercise. At stake is a fundamental republican principle: that people holding constitutional office for limited terms ought not to enjoy special privileges once they retire. ================================================= 1,18,474 too many If only laws could eliminate all that they prohibit, India would have been free of the scourge of manual scavenging decades ago. The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Bill, which is to be introduced in the monsoon session of Parliament , is another attempt to prevent employment of people in the cleaning, handling or carrying of human excreta. Despite the renewed stress on rehabilitation in the present bill, doubts persist about the will and the ability of the Central and State governments to end this dehumanising activity. The Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act, 1993, was indeed meant to address the very same issue, but implementation was lax, and tens of thousands of people continue to be engaged in manual scavenging. Not a single person was convicted under the 1993 law, although many States confirmed the prevalence of manual scavenging. According to figures released by the government last year, there were 1,18,474 manual scavengers or their dependents identified under the Self-employment Scheme for Rehabilitation of Manual Scavengers (SRMS) launched in 2007. Of course, one of the difficulties in eliminating this activity is the poor sanitation level in rural India where dry latrines remain in use. In the absence of networked sewerage facilities, even local bodies engage workers to manually clean septic tanks. Manual scavenging, then, cannot be just wished away without improving overall sanitation in the interior areas of India. The proposal for the present bill came after the matter was brought before the Supreme Court following an order of the Madras High Court that the personal appearance of high dignitaries, including those in the Prime Minister's Office, might be required if the Centre failed to amend the

law. Until then, the government was content to allow the ordinary course of rural development, at its slow pace, to draw out the communities involved into other forms of livelihood. Schemes such as SRMS were helpful to many, but did not guarantee a full escape. Most of the manual scavengers belong to the Scheduled Castes or the Scheduled Tribes, and last year the Union Ministry of Home Affairs told all States that engaging or employing a member of SCs and STs in manual scavenging may fall within the ambit of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. However, there is no record of anyone being convicted under this Act for engaging a person in manual scavenging. If the 2012 bill is to not merely set another passing deadline, comprehensive efforts from the Centre and the States that attack this abominable practice at different levels will have to be made. ======================================== BJP in damage control mode as protest over Richard case snowballs Sudipto Mondal Seeking to contain the controversy over the police handling of the Richard Loitam case, the Karnataka government and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday stepped in to pacify the northeast agitators. What started off less than a week ago as a Facebook campaign seeking to pressure the police into filing a murder case instead of one of unnatural death spilled out on the roads on Sunday with hundreds of students staging demonstrations in Bangalore, New Delhi and Imphal. Richard (19), a student of the Acharya's NRV School of Architecture on the outskirts of Bangalore, died in his sleep on April 17. The agitators claim that he was beaten to death by his seniors. But the police maintain that the youth died of injuries sustained in a road accident two days before his death. Awaiting forensic report On Monday, Home Minister R. Ashok told journalists that the government would conduct an impartial probe into the death. The initial investigation reports depict that the death occurred due to a brawl between friends while watching a cricket match. We are awaiting the forensic report to take decisive action against the accused. We have not jumped to any conclusion, keeping the accused students' future in mind. At present, we are questioning the accused and I request the student fraternity to stay calm as the investigation will be stringent. Sunil Deodhar, convener of the BJP's Northeast India Sampark Cell, who led a delegation of Manipuri diaspora to a closed-door meeting with the Minister, later told a press conference: We were told that an impartial probe will be conducted and if we are not satisfied with the findings of the police, the case will be handed over to the CID. Commending the State government, Mr. Ashok and the police for the interest they had shown in the case, Mr. Deodhar pinned the blame on the college management. He brushed aside suggestions by some of the agitators that he was enlisted by the BJP to prevent this episode from snowballing into a major controversy. No racial profiling Sharing the platform with Mr. Deodhar, Potsangbam Omprakash, president of the Manipuri Meitei Association, Bangalore, said, I want to clarify that Richard was not a victim of racial profiling.

Superintendent of Police D. Prakash said: Based the statement of Richard's father, Loitam Rajesh Kumar, we will investigate the possibility that it was culpable homicide. We have sent the tissue sample to the lab and will take action based on the forensic reports. A murder case would be registered based on forensic evidence, the SP told a press conference. Meanwhile, in its first official communication since Richard's death, the college management said it had extended all possible support to his family. It was also cooperating in the probe into the death. ================================================ We believe in strong democratic system: Kayani PTI Pakistans powerful army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani has waded into a standoff between the government and judiciary, saying the countrys development and welfare depend on state institutions functioning within their constitutional limits. The countrys Constitution has clearly defined the responsibilities and functions of national institutions and it is incumbent on them to perform their duties within constitutional limits, he said while delivering an address at an event marking the armys Youm-e-Shahada (Day of Martyrs) on Monday. In an apparent reference to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilanis conviction of contempt by the Supreme Court for refusing to act on orders to revive graft cases against President Asif Ali Zardari, Kayani said the prime objective of the democratic system is to ensure the welfare, happiness and increased dignity of the people and the establishment of a balanced society where every person can get justice equally. This is the only way which can further strengthen Pakistans national security, he said during the late night ceremony to honour soldiers killed in the line of duty and while fighting extremists. The military, he said, believes in a strong democratic system and its continuation. At the same time, Kayani touched on the national security situation and said Pakistan is still in a state of war despite unprecedented sacrifices made by the people and security forces in the campaign against terrorists and extremists. The Pakistan Army, Frontier Corps, Pakistan Rangers and police had achieved successes in many difficult areas while fighting against extremists and terrorists while the peoples sacrifices and steadfastness had boosted the morale of the armed forces. I am hopeful that we will emerge from this stage victorious with the help and prayers of the nation. We will be successful when we have a strong belief in the ideology of Pakistan. Any doubt about this ideology would weaken the country, Kayani told a gathering that included top Pakistani military officials and defence attaches from different countries. The army chief also referred to the unilateral American raid in Abbottabad that killed Osama bin Laden and a cross border NATO air strike that left 24 Pakistani soldiers dead in November last year and said: some foreign elements had launched a campaign of mistrust despite the sacrifices made by the Pakistani people and armed forces.

This campaign pushed the entire nation into a psychological crisis and forced the nation to review relations with others, he said. We think that others will have to keep in mind our sovereignty, pride and honour, he added. ======================================= Children's ordeal: good coverage in The Hindu Share Comment (2) print T+ After almost a year in foster care in Norway under the aegis of its Child Welfare Service (CWS), four-year-old Abhigyan and two-year-old Aishwarya, children of Anurup and Sagarika Bhattacharya, returned to their Indian home in Kolkata on April 24 in the company of their paternal uncle, Dr. Arunabhas Bhattacharya. Scores of relatives and thousands of well-wishers in India and abroad were jubilant over the children's homecoming. This was facilitated by the district court in Stavanger, which endorsed an agreement between the child-care organisation and Dr. Arunabhas and agreed that the children be handed over to their paternal uncle. Why, in the first place, were the NRI children separated from their parents and brought under the care of the CWS? The background is illustrative. The children, who were clearly not cared for well by the Indian family, were taken away by the Norwegian authorities on the grounds of emotional disconnect in the family. They also suspected that Abhigyan had an attachment problem. All these led to the authorities asking the CWS to take the children under its foster care. The court approval followed. Although the ordeal began early last year for the children and their parents, more than seven months passed before the story was reported in India. The plight of Abhigyan and Aishwarya jolted people all over the country. Driven by reporting in the Indian media that took on the character of a campaign, public sentiment turned into an outcry and put pressure on the Indian government. In due course, steps were taken to bring back the children to their natural home, India, at different levels diplomatic, legal, and political. The picture presented by the media, particularly news television, was mostly one-sided. It gave the impression that the Bhattacharya children were separated from their parents only because they were not well-dressed, slept along with their parents and not in separate beds, were fed by hand, and so on. They saw in the action what they called a cultural bias or cultural discrimination. The other side the real issue of universal child rights was totally ignored. It was at this stage that The Hindu decided to look deeper into the facts in order to gain a full and dispassionate insight in keeping with its tradition in reporting on such social issues. It quickly became clear that there were serious gaps in the media reporting until then. The Hindu asked its Europe Correspondent, Vaiju Naravane, to visit Stavanger to find out the truth. After reviewing the files and interviewing the family as well as CWS officials, the picture that emerges is a complex one that defies easy pigeonholing, noted the paper's editorial (Let good sense prevail, The Hindu, March 20, 2012). What followed was a series of articles, interviews, and reports from Vaiju Naravane, which gave a complete account of what had happened in the past one year and more. Well-researched, indepth reports and articles, numbering more than 15, one of which was a full-page article, all in about 30 to 40 days gave the newspaper's readers a new perspective on the emotive issue. From the Norwegian laws on child protection to the arranged marriage of the couple, Vaiju Naravane gave readers a vivid picture of the life of people, particularly immigrants, in Norway. Even as she pointed out the serious shortcomings of the parents, she was critical of the way the CWS

approached the problem. Aarti Dhar in Delhi and Ananya Dutta in Kolkata ably supplemented Vaiju's efforts. In addition to the reports, expert articles on different aspects of the problem earned the appreciation of readers. For instance, lawyer Geeta Ramaseshan's edit page article Norway yes, but let's also look within (The Hindu, January 27, 2012), offered an insightful critique of the way child protection laws and child welfare committees are used in India. The children may be home in the presumably temporary care of their paternal grandparents and uncle but with the father still in Norway and the mother in India, a great deal waits to be done to assure their well-being and future. The Indian news media have a continuing responsibility in this regard to follow this story accurately and sensitively without being intrusive. The paparazzi, in particular, must keep out, or be kept out, of the way of little Aishwarya and Abhigyan and their family as they strive to find an enduring solution to their ordeal. readerseditor@thehindu.co.in ============================================

BEML chief cites non-existing' provision to justify plot allotment Sudipto Mondal V.R.S. Natarajan, Chairman and Managing Director of BEML, has contested the April 29 report in these columns on the alleged irregular allotments of housing sites to the niece and a friend of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's Adviser T.K.A. Nair. Speaking to reporters here on Monday, Mr. Natarajan said the by-laws of the BEML Employee's Cooperative Society had a provision to allot sites to non-employees, such as Mr. Nair's niece, A. Preethy Prabha and family friend Uma Devi Nambiar. However, documents available with The Hindu show that in 2006, the BEML society made an unsuccessful attempt to amend its by-laws and facilitate allotments of plots to non-employees. The Registrar of Cooperative Societies thwarted this move, refusing to ratify the amendment. Mr. Natarajan was quoted by PTI as saying: There is a provision under the Karnataka Cooperative Societies Act that five per cent of the sites can be given to people who have been nominated by farmers. He claimed that the public sector defence undertaking's management had no control over the decisions taken by the elected board of the cooperative society. He termed absolutely unfair and against the facts the allegation that the allotments were made to secure the Prime Minister's Office's silence on the Tatra truck scam. He also said the plots might have been returned at the behest of Mr. Nair. Documents show that on March 19, 2006, the BEML Employee's Cooperative Society passed a resolution to amend its by-laws. The resolution read: The society can allot three per cent of the total sites in future layouts under its discretionary quota on [a] merit basis of each case in each layout to such persons who have rendered yeoman service to the development of the society and to the landlords, BEML company directors, executives, very senior executives, sports, fine arts, handicapped, trade union leaders of BEML, legal advisors and other people who are helping in one way or the other for the development of the society after enrolling them as associate members of our society.

This resolution was sent to the Registrar of Cooperative Societies on April 5, 2006, for approval. On May 5 that year, the Registrar ruled that the amendments could not be ratified as they went against the provisions of the Karnataka Cooperative Societies Act, 1959, as well as the model bylaws laid down by the State government for house-building cooperative societies. ====================================== Search operation on in Assam ferry mishap PTI Share Comment print T+ Rescuers on Monday scoured the waters of the Brahmaputra River amidst torrential rain to locate the over 100 missing in Assams worst boat disaster that left 103 dead even as authorities feared that the toll may rise. The death toll may rise as more than 100 are missing and the exact toll will be known after the search operation, Dhubri Deputy Commissioner Kumud Chandra Kalita said. Rescuers and divers of the Army, BSF and NDRF with speedboats were searching the waters on Tuesday morning amidst torrential rain which was continuing since Monday night to locate more bodies as the ferry was carrying over 300 passengers when it was caught in a storm and capsized in Dhubri district on Monday, he said. The National Disaster Relief Force, BSF and Army and personnel of the district administration are continuing search operations amidst torrential rain which has continued till this morning, Mr. Kalita said. The ferry was sailing from Dhubri ferry ghat to Medartary on south bank of the river when it was caught in a storm. The bodies have been kept at the Dhubri Civil Hospital. President Pratibha Patil had expressed grief over the loss of lives, while Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had assured Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi of all help for relief and funds for families of the victims. The chief minister has already ordered an inquiry. Another 12 persons were missing in another boat capsize in the same area on Monday. However AP reported that 103 bodies have been fished out of a river after a packed ferry boat capsized in Assam. ============================================== M's meet on export of farm products postponed Gargi Parsai Informal' EGoM meet removes conditions on cotton exports

A crucial meeting convened by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to discuss the policy on the export of farm commodities including wheat and to review the food grains storage position was postponed as there was apprehension that the Opposition may seek division of votes on the demand for grants for Urban Development Ministry which was being discussed in the Lok Sabha at the time. However, even as the United Progressive Alliance Ministers were rushing to the Lok Sabha word came that there was to be no voting. But by then the Prime Minister's meeting was deferred. The meeting has been postponed to Wednesday, Union Food Minister K.V. Thomas told journalists here. Among other food and farm issues, the meeting was called to discuss the policy on sugar, cotton and milk exports after Agriculture Minister Sharad had earlier shot off a letter to the Prime Minister, stating that the government's export policies were hurting farmers, who were being asked to subsidise the industry. Those invited to the meeting included Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Mr. Pawar, Commerce and Textiles Minister Anand Sharma, Minister of State for Food K.V. Thomas and Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia, besides senior officials. In a way, the urgency for taking a decision on cotton exports was taken care of in an earlier informal meeting of the Empowered Group of Ministers. The EGoM decided to lift restrictions on cotton exports as the production of cotton had improved. The meeting was held between Mr. Mukheerjee, Mr. Pawar and Mr. Sharma. A decision has been taken to remove the suspension of cotton exports registration. Registration of cotton exports will be allowed by the government, Mr. Sharma said after the meeting. Last month, the government had lifted the ban on exports but decided not to issue fresh registration of certificates (RCs). It only allowed shipments for which RCs were already issued before the ban was imposed on March. Besides taking a view on the policy on sugar exports and allowing export of milk, the Prime Minister's meeting was to have taken a decision on steps to deplete some of the burgeoning wheat stocks. With food stocks touching 74.9 million tonnes on June 1, the Food Ministry has proposed raising the allocation for both the Below Poverty Line and the Above Poverty Line populations under the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS). It has also suggested that some quantities be exported as there is demand from the Gulf countries. Certain quantities can also be put under the Open Market Sale Scheme. But the bone of contention between the Ministry of Food and Agriculture is over the export of sugar. Suggesting a change to the earlier policy of giving release orders to mills on a pro-rata basis depending upon last three years' production, Mr. Pawar said the policy should be changed to allow sugar exports on a first-come-first-serve basis under the Open General Licence. Of the 35 lakh tonnes of sugar allowed for exports since 2010-11, about 27 lakh tonnes has been exported so far. The decision for export of the last tranche of 10 lakh tonnes has, however, not yet been notified.

============================================= Switzerland agrees to ease secret account disclosure norms Special Correspondent In a step that is expected to make tracking down tax evaders easier and effectively combat the black money menace, the government on Monday announced that Switzerland had agreed to provide details of secret bank accounts of individuals sought by India even on the basis of limited information, under a mutual agreement inked on April 20 this year. According to a Finance Ministry statement here, Switzerland has agreed to provide liberal interpretation on the identity requirements, that it is sufficient if the requesting state identifies the person by other means than by indicating the name and address of the person concerned, and indicates to the extent known, the name and address of any person believed to be in possession of the requested information. This marks a significant easing of disclosure norms, as under the existing revised bilateral treaty signed under the Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement (DTAA), the requesting State has to compulsorily provide the name of the person under examination and the name of the foreign holder of the information as part of the identity requirements without which the information will not be shared by the other country. This was a restrictive provision and not in line with the international standards, the Ministry statement said. The statement also noted that the liberal interpretation to provisions of Article 26 of the DTAA, as agreed upon in the mutual agreement, will apply from the date on which the amending protocol has come into effect, that is April 1, 2011. It may be recalled that India had signed an amending protocol with Switzerland to revise the bilateral taxation treaty under DTAA on August 30, 2010 and the revised treaty was approved by Swiss Parliament on June 17 last year. Subsequently, the proposal to seek liberal interpretation of the disclosure norms was approved by the Union Cabinet in March this year. Pointing to the salient features of the mutual pact, the Ministry statement said the agreement was beneficial to India because it gives liberal interpretation to the identity requirements for exchange of information which India will be seeking from Switzerland and is in line with international standards. The conditions, as clarified by Switzerland, will enable India to get information even if we have only limited details regarding the person having bank accounts in Switzerland, it said. The new agreement was signed by Sanjay Kumar Mishra, Joint Secretary (Foreign Tax & Tax Research division), Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), and Juerg Giraudi, Head of Division of International Tax Affairs, Swiss Federal Department of Finance. ========================================== Bangalore incident fuels anger in northeast Iboyaima Laithangbam Share Comment print T+ Post mortem has made it clear it is homicide, says Richard's mother The reported bludgeoning to death of a Manipuri boy in Bangalore has aggravated a simmering discontent and the sense of discrimination among northeast students studying in other States. The charge of police inaction in Richard Loitam's case has triggered protests in all big cities, and

police and public leaders are worried that this incident may be exploited by some elements to intensify the campaign against migrant workers in this region. Prompted by the growing clamour for justice, Manipur Home Minister G. Gaihangam has written to his Karnataka counterpart, urging action. But there has been no response. On Sunday, a sit-in and candlelight vigil were held in many cities, including Imphal. Vidyapati Loitam, mother of the 19-year-old student of the Acharya's NRV School of Architecture, said the post mortem report had made clear that it was a case of homicide. We demand justice, she said, addressing those who had assembled to mourn her son. Students from all northeastern States have joined the protests in many cities. The police worry over reprisal campaigns being mounted in Nagaland, Manipur and Meghalaya to weed out foreigners and outsiders. While there is a demand in Manipur for reintroduction of the Inner Line Permit System to screen such persons, Meghalaya has opened cells in all districts to detect them. Several organisations in Nagaland have expressed concern at the presence of foreigners and outsiders in some towns. In Manipur, several migrant workers have been shot dead in the past 20 years. Some militant groups have asked house owners not to let out rooms to these labourers. The police have advised them not to go out of the city limits. Three Manipuris were molested and mugged in Delhi on the night of April 27. Modhu Chandra, spokesperson of the North East Support Centre and Helpline, in a statement, said a Tangkhul tribal girl was returning home from her office at Gurgaon, when two persons molested her. On hearing her screams, some tribal boys rushed to her rescue. But local residents beat them up, saying they had raised a false alarm. The police refused to register a case, alleges Mr. Chandra. The same night a Tangkhul tribal boy, Joshua Muivah, was robbed of his cash and all valuables and beaten up while returning home from office. The Vasant Vihar police have registered a case. Another Manipuri boy was also mugged and his cash and valuables were snatched. In this instance also, no arrest was made. ====================================== Pigeons navigation skills linked to special GPS neurons Scientists have long known that the birds navigate using the earths magnetic field. Now, a new study has found subtle mechanics in the brain of pigeons that allow them to find their way. A team at Baylor College of Medicine in the U.S. identified a group of 53 cells in a pigeons brain that record detailed information on the Earths magnetic field, a kind of internal global positioning system (GPS). However, the study, published in journal Science, leaves open the question of how these GPS neurons actually help the birds sense the magnetic field. People had reported in the past, establishing that birds do not seem to respond to the polarity of the magnetic field, yet here we have neurons that are in fact doing that, study author Prof. David Dickman said. Thats one of the beautiful aspects of what we have identified, because it shows how single brain

cells can record multiple properties or complex qualities in a simple way, he told BBC News. For their study, Prof. Dickman and his colleague Le-Qing Wu set up an experiment in which pigeons were held in a dark room and used a 3D coil system to cancel out the planets natural geomagnetic field and generate a tunable, artificial magnetic field inside the room. While they adjusted the elevation angles and magnitude of their artificial magnetic field, they simultaneously recorded the activity of the 53 neurons in the pigeons brain which had already been identified as candidates for such sensors. So, they measured the electrical signals from each one as the field was changed and found that every neuron had its own characteristic response to the magnetic field, each giving a sort of 3-D compass reading along the familiar north-south directions as well as pointing directly upward or downward. In life, this could help the bird determine not only its heading just as a compass does, but would also reveal its approximate position, the researchers said. Each cell also showed a sensitivity to field strength, with the maximum sensitivity corresponding to the strength of the Earths natural field, they added. And like a compass, the neurons had opposite responses to different field polarity, the magnetic north and south of a field, that surprised the researchers most of all. Several hypotheses hold that birds magnetic navigation arises in cells that contain tiny chunks of metal in their noses or beaks, or possibly in an inner ear organ. However, the most widely held among them was thrown into question when researchers found that purported compass cells in pigeon beaks were in fact a type of white blood cell. Another theory suggests that a magnetic sense may come about in receptors in birds eyes. When exposed to light, the theory says, molecules called cryptochromes undergo a fleeting change in their atomic makeup whose length depends on their alignment with a field. The new research throws this latter possibility also into question, as it would work equally well with a north- or south-pointing field. Were leaning toward a third receptor in the inner ear, and were doing experiments to try to determine whether it is in fact a receptor or not, said Prof. Dickman. Its now believed that more than one mechanism may be at work in bird navigation in their eyes, beaks or ears - and Prof. Dickman said he is looking forward to getting to the bottom of it. ============================================= India to ferry heaviest foreign satellite in August IANS India will ferry two foreign satellites French and Japanese on board its Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLVC21) rocket in August this year for a price, said a senior official. The next rocket launch will be in August. We will be sending our PSLV rocket with French satellite SPOT 6 (800 kg) and a small Japanese satellite weighing around 15 kg. Though the rocket is called PSLVC21 it will go before PSLVC20 , P.S. Veeraraghavan, director,

Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), told IANS. The Thiruvananthapuram-based VSCC is part of India's space agency Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). ISRO's commercial arm Antrix Corporation Limited (Antrix) has entered into a commercial Launch Services Agreement with Astrium SAS, a company under EADS, France for launching SPOT-6, an advanced remote sensing satellite. What is interesting is that the 800 kg SPOT-6 built by Astrium SAS will be the heaviest third party payload that ISRO will be carrying after the 350 kg Italian satellite Agile it carried in 2007, officials said. As the total luggage will be around 815 kg, ISRO will be using its Core Alone variant of PSLV (rocket without its six strap on motors). The mission will take ISRO's total tally of ferrying foreign satellites to 29. ISRO has been carrying foreign satellites since 1999 initially as an add-on luggage to its own satellite. It was with Agile satellite that ISRO started flying a full commercial rocket. According to Veeraraghavan, the space agency would launch SARAL satellite an Indo-French initiative using PSLV-C20 rocket after the August launch. ============================================= Bt Brinjal poses a risk to health, environment: Greenpeace report Special Correspondent An independent enquiry has revealed that the cultivation of genetically engineered (GE, also called genetically modified, or GM) Bt brinjal poses risks to the environment and possibly to human health. The occurrence of wild, weedy and also cultivated relatives presents a likelihood that the GE Bt gene will spread to these relatives but, so far, this has largely been overlooked in the risk assessments for GE Bt brinjal, it says. Genetically engineered Bt brinjal and the implications for plant biodiversity revisited, an independent study commissioned by Greenpeace International, finds that brinjal relatives do occur in the regions where cultivation of GE Bt brinjal is proposed, and that GE Bt brinjal may mate with these relatives to spread the GE Bt gene. Spread of the GE Bt gene would have considerable ecological implications, as well as implications for future crop contamination and farmers' rights. Importantly, the spread of the GE Bt gene could result in the brinjal becoming an aggressive and problematic weed, the Greenpeace report suggests, while impressing upon the governments the need to employ the precautionary principle and not permit any authorisation of the outdoor cultivation of GE Bt brinjal, including field trials The cultivation of GE Bt brinjal is proposed in some countries across Asia, including India, where there is currently a moratorium on commercialisation, and the Philippines, where field trials are going on. There are many concerns with GE brinjal, which has been engineered to be resistant to certain insect pests using Bt genes from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis. These concerns include food safety and possible effects on organisms other than the pest insect (non-

target organisms), such as beneficial insects and butterflies. One of the least known aspects of the GE Bt brinjal is its ability to cross with wild relatives or cultivated varieties. This is because there are no recent reviews in the scientific literature concerning species related to brinjal, and where they grow across Asia. This information is vital when addressing concerns regarding cultivation of GE Bt brinjal, because insect-resistance gives a selective advantage to the plant, increasing its ability to survive and reproduce. If the GE Bt brinjal cross-pollinates wild, weedy or cultivated relatives, the result is a hybrid offspring, which may grow more aggressively and thus become a problem weed, the report says. =========================================== Breaking the sanitation taboo Anurodh Lalit Jain Share Comment (3) print T+ The Greek philosopher Socrates once said: It is not living that matters, but living rightly. As the clock is inching towards the 2015 deadline of Millennium Development Goals (MDG), the philosophy has become more relevant than ever before as the MDG targets to improve socioeconomic condition of all the citizens. The MDG of Environmental Sustainability also advocates providing adequate sanitation facilities to all citizens thus giving them the right to a healthy life. According to WHO: Sanitation generally refers to the provision of facilities and services for the safe disposal of human urine and faeces. Inadequate sanitation is a major cause of disease worldwide and improving sanitation is known to have a significant beneficial impact on health of households and communities. Despite the seriousness of this topic, our community is still reluctant to openly talk about the subject of sanitation and the good practices around it. The ill-effect of this taboo can be clearly seen from the continued unhealthy sanitation practices as it is estimated that still 1.1 billion people defecate openly leading to diseases such as diarrhoea, cholera, dysentery, typhoid, and hepatitis A. In India, around 1,000 children below the age of five die from diarrhoea, hepatitis-causing pathogens and other sanitation-related diseases, according to the report of United Nations Children's Fund. Additionally, sanitation in schools has led to an increase in enrolment of children, especially girls, highlighting its manifold benefits. Many countries are taking measures to control the practice of open defecation. For example, Southern Zambia under the leadership of Chief Macha was transformed in just two years and declared open-defecation free as access to sanitation in his community was doubled from 50 per cent to 100 per cent. Brazil developed a condominial approach or simplified sewerage to construct water and sewerage networks as a response to the challenges posed by expanding services into peri-urban neighbourhoods. Condominial sewerage is a low-cost sewer system that emphasises on community participation in planning and the maintenance of sewer system at the block level. Brazil quickly operationalised a 1,200-km network of condominial sewers, the largest example of simplified sewerage in the world. Rwanda, a landlocked nation bordering Uganda with a population of 11 million, focussed its efforts and enhanced the sanitation coverage to its citizen beyond the regional average of SubSahara after community-led sanitation campaign. Rwanda attracted international tourists after the government reformed water and sanitation programmes and took away the fear of waterborne disease from the visitors. The Indian government too is burning its candle from both ends, hoping for the return of ancient Indus Valley Civilisation days, when sanitation systems were far more advanced than

contemporary urban sites. It started the Total Sanitation Campaign in 1999 with the goal of improving sanitation coverage to both rural and urban areas and eradicating the practice of open defecation. The key focus areas of TSC are individual household toilets, school sanitation and hygiene education (SSHE), community sanitary complex & anganwadi toilets supported by rural sanitary marts (RSMs) and production centres (PCs). However, things are not hunky-dory and the number clearly state that. As per latest WHO report, India still accounts for 626 million (59 per cent) of the 1.1 billion people in the world, who practice open defecation. This is twice the number of the next 18 countries combined. Additionally, India recorded nearly 22 per cent of the total deaths of children under five and a majority of those cases were due to diarrhoea or sanitationrelated diseases. Although the government has been able to ramp up toilet coverage, little effort has gone into changing citizen behaviour. A glimpse at the TSC portal gives information about the toilets constructed till date but fails to capture the data on the continued practice of open defecation despite the availability of toilets. The government must understand that creating mere toilet structures will not lead to change; instead the focus should also be on behavioural change. A massive educational campaign to explain the correlation between poor sanitation and its ill-effects on health should be launched. Secondly, ignorance towards bathroom etiquette in public toilets by some could turn off others and divert them to open defecation. School curriculum should touch upon this topic and at least train the future drivers of this country. The government of India was able to wipe out polio by massive campaigning and participation at the block, district, State and national levels. Similar awareness campaigns in participation with local community, NGOs and the State governments can be placed to get the message across. Thirdly, make sanitation business attractive for the private sector allowing them to generate income by providing sanitation services. Loan finance for sanitation support has shown some promising results for the micro finance companies; however, its effects at large scale is yet to be hypothesised. Finally, allow innovation to reach the mass. E-toilets used in Kerala by the name Delight have shown excellent results because of its unique features and automatic functioning. Similarly, Eco-san toilets are used for low income housing in many countries. Throughout his life, Gandhiji preached and practiced healthy sanitation practices and once said: The cause of many of our diseases is the condition of our lavatories and our bad habit of disposing of excreta anywhere and everywhere. Let us work towards getting our society free from open defecation and make our ancestors of the Indus Valley Civilisation proud of us. (The writer is a social healthcare analyst. Email: anurodhj@gmail.com) =================================================== A pandemic called plastic Gita Dendukuri In the last decade, the composition of garbage/solid waste in Indian cities and towns has been gradually dominated by disposable' thin polythene carrybags and varying sizes of satchets, cups, plates and containers made of flimsy plastic. Ironically, the word disposable is a misnomer, because most of these plastic items are not disposed of but just passed on along a typical chain. Once they leave the place of manufacture, these low grade plastics (fit only for single use) travel from the storekeeper to the consumer to household garbage bins to tricycles/tempos to municipal solid waste bins and finally to landfill sites. When they are not channelled to reach bins or garbage collection points, they are seen flying just about everywhere on roads and footpaths,

at public places where people gather, along the railway tracks, at inaccessible places including lakes, nullas, open wells and drains and even on treetops. Plastics travelling downstream reach villages on the outskirts of urban areas and cause untold damage to farmers' fields and cattle. Enough has been said and written with vivid portrayals through pictures and the electronic media. Each of us is well aware of the pollution and destruction caused to air, water, land, animal and man by the never disposable characteristics of low grade plastic materials which no one wants to retrieve. They are neither recyclable nor biodegradable. Littering is now a behavioural licence in India. It is assumed that sanitation workers are paid and therefore people are entitled to litter the place. But no amount of resources spent on facilities for picking up litter is adequate for clearing the unsightly mess in front of eateries, shops and entertainment spots. For all the talk on segregating domestic waste at source, namely in households, the practice of filling cheap plastic containers with leftover food and wet wastes is only on the increase and compounds the problems of sanitation workers at every level. If anyone is blamed it is the municipality! Surprisingly, no one speaks about who generated the litter in the first place. Growing consumerism over the last decade has compounded the problem to make it reach tsunamic' proportions. Less than two years ago, three young children foraging for bits of metal and recyclables in mountains of garbage at a landfill in Autonagar, Hyderabad, were actually buried alive under a landslide of garbage, predominantly plastic. A few months ago, three women went missing at a similar site at Jawaharnagar in the same city. Let us not become so insensitive as to treat these instances as mere news items. From administrators in government, to plastic manufacturers and consumers, everyone has a role to play. It is not that we as a nation were unaware of the problem 10 years ago. Several environmentally conscious citizens trusted our policymakers and waited for them to take bold decisions and implement them. In small groups, consumers decided to use their own reusable shopping bags and to say no to plastics. The effort of such groups has, however, been a drop in the ocean! An entire generation has grown up with a difficult-to-erase familiarity with only the single use polybags and plastic sachets as packing material. While policymakers continue to discuss the optimal levels of microns (</>40 microns) for prohibiting/permitting plastics, the responsibility of resisting the plastic deluge will rest with the end-users or consumers. Some steps which can be implemented easily, immediately and universally include the following: Equip yourself with alternatives to plastic carrybags cloth, canvas, jute and thick paper bags can be reused several times before we discard them. They are biodegradable. When you step out of the house, make sure you have a few of these bags of different sizes for unexpected purchases on the way. Make this an important habit. Do not accept items from any stores in thin polythene bags. Keep your own bag of appropriate size and material ready to take in the items you buy perishable fruits, vegetables and flowers; pre-packed items including provisions, medicines, confectioneries; minor items from hardware, electrical stores, etc. For monthly groceries, make sure you have two or more bags made of tough material jute, canvas, thick cotton or reusable synthetic bags for different items provisions, detergents and cleaning agents, other items.

Encourage your family and friends to carry their own bags (foldable, rollable, collapsible), and not be tempted to accept polybags. Wherever feasible, make your own bags; gift bags to others. Spread awareness by your active participation in reviving/promoting bags, containers, gifts, toys and display items made from natural resources such as wood, cane, bamboo and jute. Think beyond temporary bans. Restore, develop and promote alternatives which do not destroy the environment. Ultimately, it is we the citizens who will have to initiate and aggressively sustain yet another strong People's Movement' to save ourselves and our planet, as well as protect future generations against the prevailing plastic pandemic. (The writer's email ID is dhari42_hyd@dataone.in) ========================================= India has no room for its wandering builders Moushumi Basu Share Comment (2) print T+ CHIPPING AWAY AT THEIR RIGHTS: The construction industry is one of the biggest employers of labour in India. The picture shows the site of an IT park in Chennai. Photo: The Hindu CHIPPING AWAY AT THEIR RIGHTS: The construction industry is one of the biggest employers of labour in India. The picture shows the site of an IT park in Chennai. The exploitation of migrant construction workers has grown alongside the expansion of the industry. It's time the government got serious about upholding the law. A recent report in The Hindu on the violation of labour laws at a massive construction site belonging to the Army Welfare Housing Organisation in Bangalore raises yet again the repeated neglect of regulations relating to the employment and welfare of workers by construction companies in India. For those who missed the story, the company concerned was found paying migrant workers Rs.50 per week as wages, as against the promised Rs.157 per day. This openly flouted the provisions of the Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act (1979), the Building and Other Construction Workers' Act and the Minimum Wages Act (1948). This shocking story of exploitation in India's IT capital became public only when a handful of workers from Chhattisgarh managed to escape from the work site and were put in touch with a labour union which in turn produced the emaciated and frightened workers before the media for their testimony. Violations The contract in this case had been awarded to a company, B.L. Kashyap and Sons Ltd., that had only a year ago (July 29, 2011) been found guilty of evasion of Provident Fund payments to workers by the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) of India. A fine of Rs.593 crore was levied on the company after confirmation of forgery by the Central Finger Print Bureau of the National Crime Records Bureau. Interestingly, following the order, the Builders Association and 26 other establishments filed a case in the Delhi High Court against the EPFO, challenging their obligations regarding payment of Provident Fund to casual workers employed at construction

sites. The case is currently on. Rights under the law Construction workers in India are guaranteed certain forms of protection and rights under a broad canvas of labour laws. These include the right to minimum wages, overtime payments, weekly offs, specific allowances in case of migrant workers, housing and other social security benefits. As employers, construction companies are legally responsible for providing protection to workers. In reality, the compulsions on them to follow the rules are far and few. Under existing labour laws, the penalties imposed for the non-execution of responsibilities like maintenance of proper muster roll, non-payment of minimum wages, etc. are relatively miniscule ranging between Rs.500Rs.2,000 and not much of a deterrent for erring companies. Given this, the attempts made by the EPFO to rely on forensic sciences to determine the extent of criminal misdeed, are indeed commendable. Constituting an important segment of the overall services industry (seven per cent of total GDP), and recording an annual growth of over 10 per cent over the last five years, the construction industry is one of the biggest employers of labour in India. According to the Planning Commission's XI-Plan document, employment in the construction sector in India has witnessed a steady increase from 14.6 million in 1995 to nearly 31.5 million in 2005. It is interesting to note that while the share of skilled professionals in the business has gone down from 15.3 per cent in 1995 to 10.5 per cent in 2005, the relative proportion of unskilled personnel has registered a significant increase from 73 per cent in 1995 to 82.4 per cent in 2005. For an industry growing rapidly, with a high dependence on unskilled manpower, it is paradoxical that both the government and the industry have not yet shown any inclination of devising a foolproof system that places sufficient checks on the way the construction industry regulates or conducts itself. This aspect of neglect is most visible in the way government agencies have handled issues concerning the welfare of workers, especially migrants in the construction industry. Migrant workers Under the provisions of this Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act (1979), which was explicitly enacted to prevent migrant workers from being exploited, labour contractors are required to obtain a licence from the government concerned authorising them to recruit and employ migrant labour from one State to another. Legally, any establishment employing more than five inter-State migrant workmen is required to register under the provisions of the Act. However, while the vast majority of those employed in construction activities constitute migrants, this Act is rarely invoked. The national level data provided in the 23rd Report of the Standing Committee on Labour (December 2011) shows the number of licensed contractors or registered establishments as exceptionally low. From data gathered from 22 States, only 285 licensed contractors and 240 registered establishments were recorded as employing migrant labour. For a country of the size of India, this is definitely an under-reported statistic. Migrant workers in general constitute a vulnerable social category. With little capacity to bargain for their constitutional rights as workers, they are forced to work and live under conditions that are practically subhuman. Makeshift tents housing migrant families are a common sight in almost all big cities. During the course of a Public Interest Litigation filed by the People's Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR) in January 2010, on the violation of workers' rights at the Commonwealth Games construction sites, a Delhi High Court-appointed Monitoring Committee submitted a report which documented the almost abysmal conditions in which the workers were forced to work and live at various sites. Long working hours with no extra payments for overtime and non-payment of minimum wages were widely reported. In the course of the hearings, approximately 140 deaths of workers at construction sites were reported. Yet, government agencies turned a blind eye. Even the Shunglu committee that was constituted to look into allegations of corruption, failed to include the case of labour law violations despite repeated requests within its larger mandate of looking at

the financial improprieties conducted in the course of the Commonwealth Games. The contractor The construction industry even in its globalised avatar relies on archaic systems of operation, such as the use of contractors for the supply of labour. The Contractor Raj, if one may call it, was a prevalent feature of the colonial mode of labour recruitment and production. The Royal Commission on Labour in 1929 actually recommended the abolition of the institution of the contractor. In 1970, India passed the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act. However, this institution not only continues, but has actually deepened with the boom in the construction industry as contractors and sub-contractors are employed even in small projects. This multiple chain of operations creates its own problems of regulation. While there is little doubt that globalisation has contributed to increased business opportunities for the construction industry, things have not improved for the workers, who constitute the life and soul of the industry. The Bangalore episode has once again shown the extent of exploitation that still exists. Getting construction companies to follow the law of the land regarding fulfilment of basic rights related to employment, safety and welfare of workers still seems a distant dream. The government, despite repeated reminders, seems to be looking away. (Moushumi Basu is an Associate Professor at the School of International Studies, JNU, and member of PUDR.) ======================================= Chomsky, 250 others demand justice for Soni Sori Narayan Lakshman Noam Chomsky, renowned liberal philosopher and Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has joined a list of close to 250 Indian and foreign intellectuals in an open letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh protesting the brutal treatment meted out to Soni Sori, a woman from Chhattisgarh who is said to have been tortured by police. In the letter signed by Professor Chomsky and others including Jean Dreze, Harsh Mander, Anand Patwardhan, Aruna Roy, and Arundhati Roy, the group called for immediate medical attention for Ms. Sori (35), who was allegedly stripped, electrocuted and tortured physically and sexually. Following a Supreme Court order that Ms. Sori have an independent medical examination at NRS Medical College, Kolkata, doctors reportedly found stones lodged in her vagina and rectum. We fear for Sonis life and are outraged and ashamed at this inhuman treatment of a woman in India, said the authors of the letter about Ms. Sori, who is currently still under arrest in Chhattisgarh. Pointing out that she has received virtually no follow up medical treatment for the injuries she sustained in police custody and the infections that have developed as a consequence, Mr. Chomsky and others said in their letter that two individuals who had met Ms. Sori last week, reported that her face was visibly swollen and her hands and feet appeared abnormally thin, indicating severe weight loss. They urged that with six months passing since the time Ms. Sori was said to have been tortured her attempts to communicate with civil society groups had also been stifled and in January, a team from womens groups attempting to meet her in Raipur Jail, were prevented from doing so by the administration.

In the letter addressed to Mr. Singh, and Home Minister P. Chidambaram, the group of intellectuals expressed grave concern about Ms. Soris medical condition and demanded immediate access for fact-finding groups to meet with her to assess the situation on the spot. In a message to The Hindu from the Association for Indias Development, a non-profit organisation pressing for Ms. Soris case to be heard, a member of AID noted that contrary to any notion that an investigation had been initiated against the police officers involved, Superintendent of Police Ankit Garg, who named in Ms. Soris letters, was awarded a Gallantry Medal on Republic Day this year. ======================================== Money power' in polls yet to be tamed, says Quraishi J. Balaji Chief Election Commissioner S.Y. Quraishi on Monday admitted that the use of money power was yet to be tamed in polls and stressed on the need for meeting new challenges which undermine democracy, election and voting. Inaugurating the third conference of heads of election management bodies of the SAARC Countries here, he said democracy, elections and voting were connected by a single thread and together they helped in the emergence of a responsive moral society that avoids coercion and force and builds a strong link with human development. They also allow people recurrently to choose their own leaders and determine their own destiny. On the menace of paid news, which he described as a clandestine deal between some media persons and a few politicians, he said it was disturbing the level playing field and making a mockery of the ceiling on expenditure. The use of money power is a demon far from being tamed in elections. Civil society activism is on the rise all around and we are yet to assess what are the consequences for us. It is said that the death of a democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush but a slow extinction from apathy, indifference and undernourishment, he said, urging cooperation in strengthening the roots of democracy. Election Commissioners V.S. Sampath and H.S. Brahma participated in the conference. In the evening, the foundation stone for the Rs.48-crore new building to come up at Dwarka in Delhi for the India International Institute of Democracy and Election Management was laid by Mr. Quraishi. The three-day conference brings together the Chief Election Commissioners and the senior election officials of the region on a common platform to share their best practices in election administration and management. Empowerment of the Election Management Bodies; inclusive elections, voters' education, controlling money power in the polls and usage of technology for the cost-effective elections are some of the subjects being discussed in the meet. Among others, Fazel Ahmad Manawi, Chairman, Independent Election Commission of Afghanistan; Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmad, Chief Election Commissioner of Bangladesh; Dasho Kunzang Wangdi, Chief Election Commissioner of Bhutan; Neel Kantha Upreti, Chief Election Commissioner of Nepal; Ibrahim Waheed, Commissioner, Maldives; Justice Muhammad Roshan

Essani, Member, Election Commission of Pakistan and Mahinda Deshapriya, Commissioner of Elections of Sri Lanka, are participating. ===================================