the hindu imp. news feb. 10th 2012

8/3/2019 The Hindu Imp. News Feb. 10th 2012

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A goal is a dream with a deadline.

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THE HINDU

Imp. News

Feb.10th

2012

Page-1

Student stabs teacher to death in Chennai school:

A teacher was stabbed to death in the classroom of a private school here on Thursday, allegedly

by a 15-year-old student who was upset at being repeatedly reprimanded by her for not doing

well in studies. R. Uma Maheswari (39), who had been teaching science and Hindi for close to a

decade at the St. Mary's Anglo-Indian Higher Secondary School on Armenian Street in Parry's

Corner, was sitting in the first floor room, for the IX A Hindi class, when the boy rushed in,

slashed her throat and stabbed her in the abdomen and chest.

During questioning by police, the boy said he had recently seen the Hindi movieAgneepath and

was influenced by the hero who takes revenge on those who falsely implicate his father. The

boy had failed in both mathematics and Hindi. While the mathematics teacher had not scolded

him, Ms. Maheswari had written remarks in his diary. This angered him.

No prosecutable proof against Modi, says SIT:

The Special Investigation Team probing Zakia Jafri's complaint has freed Narendra Modi of all

charges in the 2002 Gujarat pogrom against Muslims. In a summary closure report filed

before the magistrate's court in Ahmedabad on Wednesday the R.K. Raghavan-led SIT saidthere was no prosecutable evidence against the Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who was

among 62 persons named in an omnibus complaint filed by Ms. Jafri and the Citizens for Justice

and Peace. The closure report runs counter to the opinion of Raju Ramachandran who was

appointed amicus curiae by the Supreme Court. Mr. Ramachandran was of the view that there

was ground for prosecuting Mr. Modi under various sections of the IPC.

EDITORIAL

Putting down the burden of borders:

Dhaka and New Delhi are set to host many important visits soon to review the deals andcommitments they made during Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's trip to New Delhi in

January 2010 and her Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh's much hyped visit to Dhaka in

September 2011. The border incidents, including the recent savage treatment of a young cattle

trader by the BSF, shown on video, have not only shocked Bangladesh but also caught Indian as

well as world attention, prompting New Delhi to take action against the personnel involved.


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The border guards of India have all the right to defend their frontier from illegal activities,

detrimental to their nation's interest. But the law should be allowed to take its course. Opening

fire straightway and indulging in brutal acts take their toll on people's trust. The widespread

feeling is that the largest democracy and Bangladesh's big neighbour is doing little to curb such

excesses despite repeated assurances. The Teesta water sharing accord has remained

unfulfilled till date, thanks to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, causing acuteembarrassment to the Hasina government, while the land boundary protocol signed during Dr.

Singh's visit to Dhaka on exchanging 162 enclaves has not progressed satisfactorily. New

Delhi is facing trouble in clearing the impediments to the implementation of the treaty, which

has to be ratified in Parliament. The Bharatiya Janata Party, opposed to the implementation of

the 1974 border agreement, has expressed its strong views on the issue and reportedly decried

the land swap deal, perhaps to suit its political interests. Many see the BJP's position as a

roadblock to the emerging India-Bangladesh ties.

With the Teesta deal yet to be inked, the land boundary protocol yet to cross a hurdle before

implementation, the much-desired transit non-operational, and the Tipaimukh hydro project in

Manipur triggering allegations of an impact on Bangladesh's environment and economy,

political adversaries opposing the new found ties will, undoubtedly, have the added advantage

of questioning the ultimate outcome of the relations the neighbours fondly embarked upon

two years ago. There is no denying that the deals signed and the commitments made so far

must reach their logical goals, and their fruits enjoyed by the people on both sides of the

border.

In an era of globalisation marked by a phenomenal growth of science and technology,

Bangladesh and India cannot lag behind nursing and sustaining mistrust and hostilities. Let us

hope the relations put in place by the two countries, after decades of acrimony, will emerge as

an example for South Asia. Let them not fail us.

Clinical trials in the dock:

With the Supreme Court issuing notice to the Central government on the matter of illegal drug

trials, the sordid state of human clinical trials is all set to be exposed. For multinational

companies eager to cut corners, India offers an attractive package of weak laws, lax and almost

non-existent oversight of trials, a huge illiterate, vulnerable population that can be easily

exploited, very little volunteer protection and a sizeable number of unscrupulous doctors

willing to compromise on ethics for gain.

It is essential that the Central and State governments put a quick end to this sordid state of

affairs. Ensuring the safety of patients is paramount as more than 1,700 persons have died in

clinical trials across the country between 2007 and 2010. Doctors go scot-free despite failing to

follow up serious adverse events, including deaths. Doctors and companies earning handsome

profits by throwing ethics and procedures to the winds and turning vulnerable people into

guinea pigs will then, hopefully, become a thing of the past.


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Confusing signals on Afghanistan:

The confusion that passes for Washington's Afghanistan policy was once again in evidence in

the statement by United States Defense Secretary Leon Panetta that the drawdown of

American combat troops is expected to begin sometime in 2013, a year ahead of the earlier

timetable. The statement created a stir from D.C to Delhi, and has added to the uncertaintythat hangs over Afghanistan. With the Obama Administration balancing domestic calculations in

an election year with international concerns about stability in Afghanistan, several U.S. officials

have scrambled to explain Mr. Panetta's statement not as a change of the 2014 deadline, but

an underlining of it: that the transition process would have to begin next year in order to meet

the deadline. With regional players such as Pakistan, India and Iran and international big

powers all jostling to position themselves in the so-called Afghan endgame, the situation can

only get more muddied.

Afghanistan's tragedy today, much of it scripted by the U.S., is that civilians are bound to die as

long as western troops remain on its soil, but there is no guarantee of their security if and when

these troops depart, as there are no institutions or mechanisms strong enough to maintain the

peace a double jeopardy to which as yet there is no end in sight.

OP ED

Welcome show of judicial muscle:

The reverberations of the judgment actually extend far beyond telecom, crushing the subjective

power of the government to issue licences and contracts in any sector like power, coal,

minerals, mines, land, and even special economic zones (SEZ), that allocates scarce national

resources. This effectively attacks the fountainhead of all large corruption linked to governmentcontracts. The first irrefutable principle of the judgment is on the issue of ownership and

control of natural resources provided under Article 39(b) of the Constitution: The ownership

and control of natural resources of a community should be distributed so as to best sub-serve

the common good but no comprehensive legislation has been enacted to generally define

natural resources and a framework for their protection. With the government dithering on

such specific legislation, the judgment has become the de facto law in the matter.

Auctions can do much more than just raising revenue. They are quicker, more efficient and

more economical than administrative allocation; ensure equitable access to natural resources;

protect public trust; and protect equality as upheld in Article 14 of the Constitution. The

telecom experience shows us that those who pay a market price base it on their expectation of

revenue generation. Therefore, they are the first to rollout networks, best serving the

objectives of tele-density, affordability and competition. Simply put, the judgment gives judicial

muscle to the message that from now on, offenders will be punished irrespective of political

status, financial power and the time or money that may have been invested in an act that was

illegal to begin with. Striking a blow against corruption by empowering all those non-

governmental organisations, enlightened citizens and activists fighting big corruption, this


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landmark judgment carries the potential of fast-tracking the pace of administrative reforms and

governance in India in a manner not witnessed in the past.

A battle without winners:

The battle over reconciling the commander-in-chief's birth date will also go down, withoutprejudice to either of the two disputants, as possibly the most bizarre challenge ever faced by

any modern military, leave alone the world's third largest army. But closure in the matter, in a

largely graceless and unforgiving system, will almost certainly engender grief and bitterness in

varying measure for the feuding parties where such eventual outcomes are rarely, if at all,

handled with either goodwill or magnanimity.

Consider the Hobbesian options:

If Gen. Singh's honour is vindicated by the Supreme Court, backroom negotiations or both, the

Army despite avowals to the contrary, would consider it a long overdue slap to the overbearing

MoD. Conceding 1951 to be Gen Singh's birth year would also unquestioningly reinforce the

chief's right to serve an additional 10 months in office till March 2013 in order to complete the

legitimate tenure to which the solider, much lauded in recent weeks by the United Progressive

Alliance (UPA) administration, was appointed in March 2010. This would also make him eligible

for all attendant benefits including pay and emoluments as Gen. Singh has demanded in his

Supreme Court petition.

This recalls the equally significant, but highly questionable appointment of Sanjeev Tripathi as

the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) chief on December 30, 2010 the day he was

superannuating having attained the age of 60 after the incumbent K.C. Verma voluntarily

advanced his retirement date by one month, enabling his junior to succeed him and secure anadditional two years in office. Mr. Verma was reportedly advised by the UPA that offering

to step down as RAW chief 30 days earlier, thereby facilitating Mr. Tripathi's ascension, would

make him eligible to head the signals intelligence gathering agency, the National Technical

Research Organisation. Thirteen months later, Mr. Verma is still awaiting that appointment.

A mid-2011 report by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and global financial consultants

KPMG, for instance revealed that since 2007, India had confirmed over $25 billion worth of

military purchases of which the Indian Air Force's share was $17.46 billion, the Indian Navy's

$6.16 billion, the Indian Coast Guard's $616 million and the Indian Army's a mere $420 million.

It remains an open secret that the equipment profile of the army's combat arms infantry and

armour remains woefully inadequate whilst that of support arms like artillery, air defence

and the Army Aviation Corps (AAC) to name a few, is equally deficient and obsolete. By the

Army's own admittance, a large proportion of its Main Battle Tank T72M1 Ajeya fleet is night

blind as is the AAC, both of which constitute a crucial ingredient of the controversial cold start

doctrine of launching a pre-emptive offensive against Pakistan in a limited war scenario to

achieve negotiable military gains in a nuclear weapons environment. The scandalous artillery

deficiency is plagued by an endless cycle of tenders issued, withdrawn and re-issued and


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several rounds of inconclusive trials conducted, all further complicated by the MoD totally or

conditionally blacklisting several top howitzer vendors without providing clarity on their

respective status. More worryingly, some 359 infantry battalions trained ironically for nuclear

warfare await the import of a basic weapon system: the 5.56mm assault rifle (AR) to replace

the inefficient, locally designed but costly, Indian Small Arms System (INSAS) AR which the army

has tentatively employed since the mid-1990's and now abandoned after massive investments.

Why are politicians not being held accountable, IAS officials ask:

Where does the buck stop in government, at the desk of a minister or that of the bureaucrat

who signs the files? This question has stirred a passionate debate in Andhra Pradesh, where the

Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested two bureaucrats and questioned many more

in connection with a slew of corruption scams. For the State's IAS officers, the question is a no-

brainer: the political executive must take responsibility for all policy decisions. It already claims

credit for the good decisions, so why not the bad ones, they are asking. They are peeved that

the CBI does not quite see it the same way, and that rather than holding political leaders

accountable for all scams, it has been hounding the bureaucrats.

Politicians, on the other hand, argue that bureaucrats must not get blanket immunity,

especially when the country is facing monumental corruption. No country provides the kind of

protection the IAS officers enjoy in India under Article 311 of the Constitution (safeguards

against dismissal and reduction of rank), says Jayaprakash Narayan, a former IAS officer who

founded the Lok Satta Party.

The babu vs. neta battle has already drastically slowed down administrative decision-making in

Andhra Pradesh as officers have stopped using their discretion in signing files. The ramifications

of the cases against Emaar and Jagan go beyond India's shores to Dubai and Mauritius. Theburden is now on the CBI to demonstrate that it is conducting a fair investigation.

INTERNATIONAL

Waheed effects quick changes:

His first job was to appoint Home and Defence Ministers. Mohamed Jameel Ahmed was given

the Home Affairs while Mohamed Nazim was made the Minister of Defence and National

Security. They were told to resolve the situation, implement laws according to the Constitution

and treat every citizen equally. Both the new Ministers had fallen foul of the earlier regime, and

are also considered anti-India. The Home Minister had brought out a handbook against the

Indian private sector company that is in charge of Male Airport, GMR. Also, the new police chief

was dismissed by the Nasheed government when he was deputy police chief. All this suggest

that while walking the proverbial tight rope in balancing demands, Dr. Waheed is also not

averse to employing talent that is not universally acceptable.


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Amid these changes, he met Indian High Commissioner to The Maldives, Duyaneshwar Mulay;

British High Commissioner in Sri Lanka who is concurrently accredited to The Maldives John

Rankin; UNDP Resident Representative Andrew Cox and many others. He is to meet a U.N. team

on Friday and Robert O' Blake, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, on Saturday.

Maldives slips deeper into crisis:

A weak President, a belligerent set of officials who have re-discovered power, and a defiant

former President are together pushing Maldives deeper into crisis, with each player trying to

outdo the other since late Wednesday. Similarly-worded appeals from major donors and well-

wishers of The Maldives India, U.K., U.S., U.N. and European Union asking all parties to the

conflict to take a step back, had an effect for a few hours. Protesters in small groups took to the

streets again and rumours began to make headlines in the media. With heavy rains lashing

Male, the confrontation that has pitted ex-President Mohamed Nasheed and his supporters

against the rest of Maldives shifted from the streets to cyberspace and into mind. Indian High

Commissioner to The Maldives, Dnyaneshwar Mulay, met both Mr. Nasheed and Dr. Waheed

yet again on Thursday to defuse the crisis. It appears that both leaders agreed not to incite their

cadre, but this time the trigger was the issue of the warrant.

Judge Garzon convicted:

Spain's high court convicted judge Baltasar Garzon on Thursday in an illegal wiretapping case,

ending the judicial career of a man who won world renown for pursuing human rights abuses.

We condemn the accused, Baltasar Garzon, as the author of the crime of abusing his

authority... to 11 years' suspension from his duty as judge or magistrate, the court's ruling

read. Mr. Garzon (56), who gained international attention by trying to extradite Chile's former

dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1998, was found guilty of ordering illegal recordings of suspects ina corruption case talking to their lawyers. The suspension effectively ends Mr. Garzon's career.

He is also awaiting judgment in a second trial for investigating atrocities of the Franco era, in

alleged breach of an amnesty.

A line of defence for zebras:

Scientists claim to have finally solved the mystery of why zebras evolved their distinctive black

and white stripes to keep blood-sucking flies at bay.

Last known WWI veteran dies at 110:

Florence Green never saw the front line. Her war was spent serving food, not dodging bullets.

But Ms. Green, who has died at age 110, was the last known surviving veteran of World War I.

She was serving with the Women's Royal Air Force as a waitress at an air base in eastern

England when the guns fell silent on November 11, 1918.


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BUSINESS

Europe business drags Tata Steel into red:

The European operations of Tata Steel which account for about two-thirds of its production,

have weighed the company down as it slid into the red on a consolidated basis in the thirdquarter of 2011-12. Hit by lower demand and higher costs, Tata Steel reported a consolidated

loss of Rs.603 crore (profit of Rs.1,003 crore in the same period last year.

Page 3

UPSC Chief hails online exams:

Union Public Service Commission Chairman D. P. Agrawal on Thursday called for greater use of

information technology for holding of examinations and interviews by the selection bodies to

bring about transparency in their functioning and select suitable candidates for important jobs.

The selection procedure should be strengthened and completed strictly on schedule, said Prof.

Agrawal addressing the 14{+t}{+h}national conference of Public Service Commissions in Ajmer.

He praised an initiative taken recently in Rajasthan for holding online examinations, saying it

would help find out the young talents among the large number of candidates.

Civil servants are often required to work in adverse circumstances. It is the duty of Public

Service Commissions to select public servants [capable of] acting as key agents for development

of the nation, said Prof. Agrawal. He praised the efforts of various State Commissions to select

the best among the available human resource. Rajasthan Energy Minister Jitendra Singh,

inaugurating the two-day conference, said the young people with exceptional abilities in the

fields of education, medical care, journalism and IT should be encouraged to join civil servicesfor betterment of society. He said the State PSC had utilised all available resources over the

years for selecting right candidates.

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The world needs a revolution led by women-

Robinson, the first woman President of Ireland, Gro Harlem Brundtland, Norway's first woman

Prime Minister, and then Ms. Kumar, India's first woman Speaker. There, I mentioned that after

we gained freedom, our (South Africa's) first speaker (of its National Assembly) was a woman,

Frene Ginwala; she was of Indian extraction, says the legendary African leader often referred

to as South Africa's moral conscience.

Nobel laureate Tutu is presently on a visit to India in the capacity of being the Chair of The

Elders, a group of global leaders brought together by Nelson Mandela in 2007 to pool their

collective influence and experience to promote peace and human rights. The Elders are on their


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maiden India visit to take up the cause of child marriage as part of their global initiative

launched last year Girls Not Brides.

Antrix moves civil court against devas arbitration process:

Antrix Corporation Ltd., the commercial arm of the Indian Space Research Organisation, hasmoved the Bangalore City Civil Court seeking a temporary injunction against the arbitration

proceedings initiated by Devas Multimedia Pvt. Ltd. before the International Court of

Arbitration (ICA) of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) in Paris. Devas approached

the ICA for restoration of its 2005 agreement for allocation of S-band spectrum, which was

cancelled by Antrix last year.

Antrix, in its suit, has contended that as per the terms of the agreement, the arbitration should

have been initiated in New Delhi as per the provisions of the Indian Arbitration and Conciliation

Act, 1996. Quoting the clauses of the 2005 agreement, it argued that the procedure to be

followed for arbitration should either be that of the ICC Rules or the United Nations

Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) Rules. Antirx in the suit stated that even

though it had moved the Supreme Court in August-September, 2011 for constitution of arbitral

tribunal, the ICC in November, 2011 appointed a Chairman for its arbitral tribunal, and asked

Antrix to deposit advance cost of $650,000.

SPORT

Fabio Capello resigns as England manager:

Fabio Capello resigned as manager of England on Wednesday following the Football

Association's decision to strip John Terry of the captaincy, the FA confirmed. The 49-year-oldPearce, a former Manchester City manager, runs the British Olympic and England under-21

teams. Capello quit on Wednesday, angry that he had not been consulted by the FA over its

decision to strip John Terry of the captaincy. The 65-year-old took over as England coach in

December, 2007 following the country's failure to qualify for the Euro 2008 final, signed a

lucrative 6 million-a-year contract with a brief to halt years of under-achievement on the

international stage.

Page 20

Emergency records untraceable in PMO files:

The records of correspondence between Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and President

Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed relating to Emergency proclamation in 1975 are untraceable in PMO

files, prompting a direction by the Central Information Commission to locate and preserve

them. The transparency panel also directed the competent authorities in the Prime Minister's

Office to enquire into how the records of an important post-independence event went


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untraceable. In a reply to an RTI applicant, the PMO had claimed that despite its best efforts,

the communication relating to proclamation of Emergency could not be traced in its records.

the hindu imp. news feb. 10th 2012

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