Monday, December 13, 2010
Monday, July 26, 2010
Where are all the new social networks?
Where are all the new social networks?
Charles Arthur
AP A screenshot of social networking site Facebook. File Photo
The technology scene has echoes of the post-dotcom exhaustion of 2002 as we wait for mobiles to catch up.
Where have all the social networks gone? Of course, this is exactly the right time to be asking this question. Haven't I noticed that Facebook is now claiming 500 million users, in the manner of Doctor Evil in Mike Myers's Austin Powers movies? Haven't I noticed that Twitter is getting its very own data centre, all the better to spread “unimportant trivia” (Copyright all tabloid papers)?
Well, yes, I have. But my question is actually about the broader subject.
What I'm really asking is where all the new social networks have gone. In the past two years, especially as Twitter has risen over the media horizon like a sunrise, barely a week has passed without a new network culled from the web 2.0 name generator - take a verb ending in -er and remove the “e” - being announced, often with a press release smelling ever so slightly of desperation that another “me-too” product could become the “us-instead” replacement.
To which the response is always: that hardly ever happens. Despite the insistence of web executives everywhere that rivals online are “only a click away”, you actually have to screw up royally to turn a successful service into one that people leave in droves. (So congratulations to the former managers at MySpace and Bebo: you deserve your place in those MBA case studies of the future.)
Look around, though, and sites such as blip.fm haven't taken off. True, services such as FourSquare and Gowalla seem to be on the rise — although people haven't quite grasped the threat that they can pose to users. So we're back at the original questions: where are all the new social networks? I think they're gone. Done, dusted, over. I don't think anyone is going to build a social network from scratch whose only purpose is to connect people. We've got Facebook (personal), LinkedIn (business) and Twitter (SMS-length for mobile).
Today the technology scene has echoes of the post-dotcom boom exhaustion of 2002-4. Then, the ideas which sank on the reefs of too-slow internet connections and too-few internet users had to wait for computers to catch up. Digg in 2004 and Google Maps in 2005 heralded much of the expansion, showing how a mashup of information meant new possibilities, and the whole “Web 2.0” concept began to germinate.
Now we're waiting again for mobiles, and especially smartphones allied to mobile networks, to catch up with what ambitious startup companies want to do. Apple's insistence in 2007 that iPhone users should have unlimited data plans yanked the entire mobile business forward about 10 years, and briefly showed us how everything should be working by 2012. No surprise that in recent months the mobile networks, unable to invest fast enough, have been rowing back on the “unlimited data” commitment, taking us back to 2007.
The next big sites won't be social networks. Of course they'll have social networking built into them; they'll come with an understanding of their importance, just as Facebook and Twitter know that search (an idea Google refined) and breaking news (Yahoo's remaining specialist metier) are de rigueur. Nor will they be existing sites retrofitted to do social networking, despite the efforts of Digg and Spotify.
So what will they be? No idea, I'm afraid. If I knew that, would I be here writing? Hell, no — I'd be off making elevator pitches and vacuuming up venture capital. Which brings us to business models. Facebook makes its money not just by sucking up ad impressions from the rest of the internet, using its remarkably detailed targeting ability; it also gets a cut from virtual transactions using its own virtual currency. LinkedIn, similarly, can precisely target its executive base. Twitter is different again, selling its user-generated content for big money to Google and Microsoft's Bing, as well as experimenting with direct payment for its EarlyBird sales system and “promoted tweets”. The point being that “ad-supported” isn't the only game for startup revenue. The big sites of the future won't necessarily be about ads as a way to make money, and they won't be about social networks. Now, hunker down and wait. Or get out there and build it. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2010
Friday, July 23, 2010
India's counter-insurgency conundrum
India's counter-insurgency conundrum
Praveen Swami
The Hindu CRPF personnel patrolling the Khunti to Tamar road during the Naxal bandh in Khunti on July 8. Photo: Manob Chowdhury
Ill-trained CRPF was expected to fix a problem ill-trained police forces couldn't deal with. The price of that misplaced optimism has been paid with blood.
Five decades ago, a French Special Forces officer, ruminating on the ruin of his nation's once-powerful empire, set out to understand just why its armed forces had lost in a battle to adversaries armed with little other than determination. Unusually for a participant-chronicler of defeat, Roger Trinquier blamed neither politicians nor the inscrutable workings of history.
The problem, Trinquier argued, was that France had persisted “in studying a type of warfare that no longer exists and that we shall never fight again, while we pay only passing attention to the war we lost in Indochina and the one we are about to lose in Algeria. The result of this shortcoming is that the army is not prepared to confront an adversary employing arms and methods the army itself ignores. It has, therefore, no chance of winning.” “Our military machine,” he wryly concluded, “reminds one of a pile-driver attempting to crush a fly.”
Earlier this month, New Delhi laid out new proposals to address the growing Maoist insurgency that is devastating large swatches of India: a unified inter-State command, assisted by a retired Army Major-General. For all the hype, it is unclear just what the new structure is meant to achieve. No retired soldier, no matter how illustrious, has any experience of the ongoing counter-Maoist operations — or even firsthand knowledge of the forces he will be advising. More important, the immediate problem is not that of insurgents escaping pursuit across State lines: it is the growing mass of their forces, and the lethality of attacks.
Behind New Delhi's anodyne response lies a bitter truth the government will not publicly admit: the principal instrument of India's counter-Maoist campaign will not and cannot succeed.
A force in ruins
Back in 2003, a Group of Ministers assigned the Central Reserve Police Force frontline responsibility for counter-insurgency operations, in support of police across the country. Its recommendations, part of the seminal Report of the Group of Ministers on Reforming the National Security System, were widely seen as a well-intentioned effort to end the use of the Army and the Border Security Force in counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism duties.
In 1999, when the expert group on whose basis the Report was issued conducted its work, the CRPF had 1,67,367 personnel. That number went up to 2,60,873 in 2007 — and is believed to have increased to over 2,80,000 now.
Key to the problem is that the CRPF has nowhere to train its recruits. The organisation has six training centres, each of which was designed to process between 150 and 200 personnel at a time through nine-month basic courses. Today those centres cannot even handle recruitment made to redress wastage — men who retire, for example, or who have to be removed for discipline. New battalions are being trained at improvised facilities lacking in basic infrastructure like classrooms, quality firing ranges and combat-simulation facilities — and by officers who will eventually lead them on the field, not professional instructors.
Worse, the CRPF has a crippling shortage of officers at the cutting-edge Assistant Commandant level — the officers responsible for handling forces the size of a company, or about 125 men. Induction has not kept pace with the expansion of the force. So, most battalions have to make do with just half of their sanctioned strength of Assistant Commandants.
Many of the best officers, moreover, are siphoned off by the Special Protection Group and the National Security Guard early in their careers. Few, thus, develop a personal rapport with the men they return to command. Satyawan Yadav, who led the ill-fated 62 Battalion patrol which was wiped out in Dantewada in April this year, had spent 10 years at the SPG. Internal investigators found that Yadav had defied orders to conduct a long-rage patrol through forests, choosing instead to lie about the whereabouts of his force to his commanders. His transition from the air-conditioned environment of the Prime Minister's home to a field camp in Bastar had evidently been difficult.
Poor leadership has meant the CRPF has little institutional ability to learn from its mistakes. Despite repeated warnings from the Intelligence Bureau, 62 Battalion failed to secure its headquarters in Rampur against an attack by the Lashkar-e-Taiba in December 2007. Earlier this year, several personnel were held on charges of selling ammunition to organised crime groups in Uttar Pradesh. Later, Battalion commander Prabhranjan Kumar was relieved of his duties and is now facing internal proceedings related to inappropriate personal behaviour.
No in-house intelligence
It doesn't end there: the CRPF does not have an in-house intelligence organisation. It recruits on a national basis, meaning it has few personnel familiar with the language, culture and terrain of the areas in which it operates. It does not even have a higher-command school dedicated to counter-insurgency tactics. Bluntly, everything that could conceivably be wrong is wrong.
For most of its history, the CRPF served as a resource provider, sending out company-sized forces to assist the police across the country. Few commanders had frontline combat roles until the CRPF was drawn into the Punjab insurgency. Bar a brief commitment in Jammu and Kashmir, the force had no independent counter-insurgency commitments till five years ago — when it was handed a role it was neither prepared nor equipped for.
“We can't teach the CRPF how to walk,” Chhattisgarh Director-General of Police Vishwa Ranjan said of the series of errors in fieldcraft that led to the massacre of 27 personnel in a fire-engagement last month. His words may have been harsh — but their accuracy cannot be disputed.
“Policing a country of over 1.1 billion people,” Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram said in June, “is not an easy task.” He pointed out that in many of the States worst-hit by Maoist violence, “there are police stations where there are no more than eight men; and even these eight or less men do not hold any weapons for fear of the weapons being looted.” He called on the States to “enhance the capacity of training institutes to at least double the present capacity, and to recruit at least double the number of policemen and women being recruited at present.”
Ever since Mr. Chidambaram took office as Home Minister, India has seen a concerted effort to enhance police staffing. In December 2008, the National Crime Records Bureau reported, India had 1.13 million police personnel — about 128 for every 1,00,000 people, just over half the United Nations-recommended norm for peaceful societies facing no major challenges. The government now claims that the public-police ratio has risen to 1,00,000:161.78. The figures have aroused some scepticism, implying that 3,84,000 personnel have been hired in just 18 months — not counting the replacement of those who retired or were otherwise lost.
Leaving aside the statistical dispute, though, it is clear many Maoist-hit States are not the beneficiaries of force expansion. Bihar still has just 85,545 posts, of which 23,889 are vacant. That means there are 74.29 officers for every 1,00,000 population. Orissa still has just 135.8, and West Bengal just 100. Elsewhere, the increases are more marked, but still well short of international norms. Jharkhand, which had just 136 police personnel per 1,00,000 population five years ago, now has 206.98, according to the Union Home Ministry. Chhattisgarh's police-population ratio too has risen from 128 to 226.3: 1,00,000.
Moreover, force expansion is not solving the problem it was intended for. Nagaland, which now has a staggering 1,677.3 police personnel for every 1,00,000 population, Jammu and Kashmir 742.3, and Manipur 669.6 — some of the highest population to force ratios in India — but none has succeeded in relieving the military of counter-insurgency responsibilities. Mizoram, which has no insurgency, has 1,268.6 police personnel per 1,00,000 population, suggesting that the problem in essence is serving employment-generation imperatives.
Even if all States were to expand their forces to these levels, it is far from clear if the facilities and instructors exist to make the recruitment meaningful. The benefits of facilities like Chhattisgarh's school of jungle warfare at Kanker are evident. From January to June this year, the Chhattisgarh police claimed to have killed 37 Maoist insurgents, compared to just 10 by the CRPF, eight of those in joint operations. Notably, the police lost 29 men in combat, as against 117 fatalities suffered by the CRPF. Few governments, though, have followed its lead. In his speech, Mr. Chidambaram announced that nine counter-insurgency and anti-terrorism schools would be up and running this year, each equipped to train 1,000 personnel a year. He made clear, though, that these schools would in no way meet the needs of India's burgeoning forces.
“We hope,” Union Home Secretary G.K. Pillai said in 2009, as the CRPF began to surge deep into Chhattisgarh, “that literally within 30 days of the security forces moving in and dominating the area, we should be able to restore civil administration there.” New Delhi hoped that an ill-trained CRPF would help fix a problem ill-trained police forces weren't able to deal with. The price of that Panglossian optimism has been paid with blood. Both New Delhi and the States need to get down to the hard work needed to build credible counter-insurgency forces — and, meanwhile, consider strategies that are consistent with their capabilities.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Harsh ground realities could trip RTE vision
Harsh ground realities could trip RTE vision
Poor attendance by teachers and lack of importance given to education by migrating parents main hurdles
Cordelia Jenkins
Lucknow: In an upstairs classroom at a residential school in Mal, near Lucknow, the girls are revising for their exams. As the light starts to fade at the glassless windows, each girl takes a brightly coloured plastic lamp and carries it to her space on the floor. There is no electricity, but the lamps are solar powered. They have been donated jointly by Swedish company Ikea and the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) to Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya (KGBV) schools in Uttar Pradesh, for girls from minority groups and impoverished backgrounds. In the dark, little pools of light gather around each bent head.
That’s an improvement no doubt, yet a challenge; and it is something that would have struck a chord with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who too once struggled similarly in the absence of electricity. On 1 April, Singh spoke in Delhi as the Right to Education (RTE) Act came into force, and said, “In my childhood, I read under the dim light of a kerosene lamp. I am what I am today because of education, and I want every Indian child, girl and boy, to be so touched by the light.”
Also Read Previous stories under India Agenda campaign
Thanks to RTE, all children aged 6-14 now have the constitutional right to receive a good quality education. The plan includes proposals to upgrade existing schools and open new ones; train thousands of new teachers for a mandated 1:30 teacher-pupil ratio, and institute a 25% reservation in private schools for minority students.
It is one of many efforts to boost school attendance in India. Census data shows a countrywide increase in literacy from 52.2% to 64.8% between 1991 and 2001, and since then, the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) programme claims to have placed a primary school within 1km of nearly every child in the country.
But there is much to be done.
The challenge
Official estimates say 8-10 million children are still out of school (other sources claim the figure is much higher, up to 40 million), and child labour numbers and dropout rates are high.
According to a 2010 report from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco), nearly four out of 10 children who enrol in first grade don’t reach the 12th; and many students are unable to pursue their education consistently, and are forced to take breaks depending on the seasonal migration between cities and villages by their parents in search of jobs.
Predictably, children from the scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and other backward castes have lower enrolment rates, as do girls, who are disabled or from minority communities.
Concerns such as these prompt doubts on the feasibility of the Act. Ashish Rajpal, chief executive of iDiscoveri, a social enterprise that works to transform teaching methods in India, is one of those with reservations.
“Every right-thinking person in the country has to welcome this Act,” he says. “It’s been overdue for 50 years. But having forward-thinking documents doesn’t necessarily mean that change will occur. In terms of form, there is almost nothing missing at the moment. We have the schools, we have the complete system, but where is the substance?”
In Uttar Pradesh (UP), a state with one of the lowest literacy rates (56% in 2001), the problem is particularly pressing. Yet, the state director of SSA, Lalita Pradeep, is confident that progress is being made. “RTE is the best thing that ever happened to our country,” she says. “UP is the largest state so it has a big challenge before it; we are totally ready.”
India reported a fall of almost 15 million in out-of-school numbers in the two years following SSA’s 2001 launch, according to the Unesco report. Now, the country faces the challenge of maintaining those results and pushing harder in the state’s major cities.
Urbanization in UP has flooded cities with the children of migrant workers and heightened competition for real estate. In Lucknow, much school space is rented and, with high rents and scarce space, SSA struggles to renovate and extend its existing buildings, says Pradeep. Because of the temporary nature of their housing and jobs, immigrants are often slow to enrol their children in school and quick to pull them out. In Lucknow, the pressure on urban schools to keep up with this erratic enrolment means that the required materials, registration documents and funds often come too late or not at all.
At the Chandganj Primary School, teachers voice their frustrations over the delays in acquiring these documents. Rekha Yadav says that the parents of most students are migrant workers—labourers, rickshaw drivers and vegetable sellers—who are less interested in the quality of their children’s education than in the material benefits (uniforms, free meals and the Rs300 incentive fee) that come with it. “I have to make the children understand the importance of learning,” she says, “I have to persuade them to study.”
“They don’t come regularly,” agrees headmistress Maya Dixit. “In the harvest season, the kids go back to the villages to work. It’s very frustrating, we can’t teach them properly.”
Dixit says that most parents are below the poverty line and consider education to be of secondary importance. “First comes food, then education,” she says.
It is more difficult to measure and enforce enrolment in city schools, but rural schools find it harder to attract trained teachers. Pradeep estimates that the state will need to train 300,000 new teachers and retrain some existing ones, as the RTE Act doesn’t permit untrained teachers to work. “Quality has been the biggest challenge for many decades, and it still is,” she says. “We have recruited good teachers with good backgrounds and training, but sometimes that doesn’t translate when they are in the school.”
In fact, teaching standards vary greatly, and private schools can seem like a better option to parents, says Vinobajee Gautam, an education specialist with Unicef in Lucknow. “There is a widely held perception among the urban poor that government schools are inefficient,” he says. “Some people’s perception is so bad that they prefer to take their children out of education altogether if they can’t afford the private option.”
Accusations of teachers playing truant and working on the side during school hours are frequently made, and Uma Bisht, the UP director of the National Literacy Mission, says this is due to a lack of regulation. “Even today, especially in rural areas, the teachers don’t attend regularly,” she says. “If the teachers aren’t behaving responsibly, we cannot motivate the parents, we cannot motivate the children. We have to blacklist these teachers.”
The RTE promises to set up school management committees (SMCs) to address such problems. At Unicef, Gautam is working to spread awareness about the new rules. “With this Act, the government has managed to transmit the sense of responsibility to the communities themselves,” he says. “When we hand over the school to them, we’ll see the results.”
SMCs will be made up of local community leaders and parents, acting as watchdogs for their local schools, responsible for everything from admissions to fund allocation. “I think it’s ownership that will make a difference in these areas,” Pradeep says. “Once 75% of the SMC is made up of parents, things will look different; we can ensure good results and there will be a lot of transparency of these funds.”
The final hurdle will be empowering those who remain marginalized. Belonging to a scheduled caste or tribe or being a girl still lowers a child’s chance of getting an education in India. The girls at the school in Mal come from these backgrounds and SSA’s KGBV schools, basic as their infrastructure might be, offer what is often the only chance for pupils such as these to realize Singh’s dream.
Kashmir and the poverty of politics
Kashmir and the poverty of politics
Happymon Jacob
AP Protesters shout slogans in Pampore, on the outskirts of Srinagar, on Wednesday. Kashmir's latest unrest needs to be seen in context, wherein the politics of New Delhi and Srinagar has lost favour with the Kashmiris.
It is easy to blame Pakistan, the Lashkar-e-Taiba, and the Opposition for the troubles in Kashmir. But the fact remains that it is the National Conference-led government's deplorable poverty of politics that has set the State alight again.
The ongoing unrest in Kashmir is the result of a failure of politics, political courage, conviction and empathy. If Kashmir burns time and again, it is because politicians in New Delhi and Srinagar have failed to extend a powerful and convincing political argument to the Kashmiris. Gone are the days when a nation state could demand the undiluted loyalty of its citizens by force and coercion; today, a modern multinational state such as India can command the legitimacy of its citizens only by the power, persuasiveness and attraction of its political arguments.
Kashmir's latest unrest needs to be seen in context, wherein the politics of New Delhi and Srinagar has lost favour with the Kashmiris. It is easy and convenient to blame Pakistan, the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), dissident parties in Kashmir and the Opposition People's Democratic Party for the troubles. Indeed, they might have even committed their own acts to fuel the unrest. However, the fact remains that it is the National Conference-led Jammu and Kashmir government's deplorable poverty of politics that has set Kashmir alight again.
Forgotten promises
The historic election of 2008 saw Omar Abdullah elected Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir with a remarkable voter turnout of 61 per cent, despite the vote coming in the wake of the Amarnath land dispute. It was hoped by many that the young and dynamic Mr. Abdullah would lead the State towards peace and prosperity. However, the NC-Congress administration in Jammu and Kashmir has failed to accomplish anything more than the preceding governments and has been equally unable to prevent the State from sliding into further turmoil. Mr. Abdullah also appeared to falter on many occasions in the last two years, including recently when he attempted to blame the unrest on the LeT and anti-national elements. This is a sentiment, of course, shared by the NC's coalition partner, Congress. The Chief Minister has said on a number of occasions that Kashmir is a political issue, first and foremost, and rightly so; what then, one wonders, has prevented him from addressing it as such?
The new government in Jammu and Kashmir came to power pledging zero tolerance to human rights violations. But this is observed more in the breach. The Chief Minister also briefly flirted with the idea of setting up a ‘Truth and Reconciliation Commission' of sorts; however, it remains one of his pet grand ideas and has never materialised. The process to amend various draconian provisions of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) is yet to get under way in a serious manner. The five working groups established by the Prime Minister to resolve State issues at the end of the second round table conference in 2006 have not been given adequate attention, despite the encouraging suggestions proffered by many of them.
In 2000, the NC pushed a resolution through the State Assembly demanding autonomy that was rejected in totality by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance government in New Delhi, which termed it “anti-national.” One wonders why the NC has not renewed this demand, given that it is now a coalition partner in the UPA government at the Centre. All the NC and Mr. Abdullah have done in this regard, though, has been to make occasional references to it. It is one thing to orchestrate a litany of promises; it is an entirely different thing to have the political will and courage to pursue them.
Premature triumphalism
The previous two years of mainstream politics in Jammu and Kashmir have been marked by a post-2008 election euphoria that has led to a misplaced sense of triumphalism in Srinagar and New Delhi regarding the victory of democracy and the defeat of dissent in the Valley. The politics of indifference and complacency took root in place of a realisation that this sense of relative stability could be used to usher in a programme of political reconciliation and peace. Mainstream politicians in the Valley forget what has always been true in the case of Kashmir: peace is not the absence of conflict but the presence of justice, as famously pointed out by Martin Luther King Jr. The politicians of Jammu and Kashmir and New Delhi should have had the wisdom to capitalise on the positive post-2008 atmosphere by promoting substantive conflict resolution processes in the State. The absence of a political reconciliation process has convinced the people, especially the youth, that their trust has been betrayed by the elected leadership.
Meaning of violence
There is also a widespread tendency among officials and those who write on Kashmir to assert that in a purely statistical sense, examining (for example) indices of poverty and other socio-economic indicators, Kashmir is doing far better than most other Indian States: so what are the Kashmiris complaining about? On the other hand, there are those who argue that the way to resolve the Kashmir issue is simply to pump ever more money into the State. Both these positions are half-truths, if not outright absurdities. Those who defend such arguments fail to understand the meaning of violence in its more nuanced sense. Peace and normalcy cannot be measured by poverty levels, or by other well-cited numbers such as the number of deaths by police fire. These statistics cannot capture the extent of political alienation and the severe psychological trauma experienced, especially by the post-1989 generation that has grown up in the shadow of guns and bloodshed. No amount of economic largesse will tempt this generation to buy unconvincing political arguments. When disillusioned youth fight for a meaning to their political existence, the political parties of Jammu and Kashmir ought to pay attention, for it is these youths who will decide their fate.
Pakistan factor
In this context, the argument that peace building and conflict resolution in Kashmir could not progress due to the post-26/11 acrimony between India and Pakistan falls flat. The fact is the governments in New Delhi and Srinagar need not wait to get the green signal from Islamabad to talk to their own people. Non-interference by Islamabad may well reduce violence and keep Kashmir militancy-free. However, the reality is that the current eruption of violence is marginally affected by Pakistan. Ironically, one could even argue that less interference by Islamabad could even prompt the Indian government to become complacent on Kashmir. In truth, it has certainly appeared thus since 2008.
Why should Pakistan dictate our Kashmir policy when we are certain that for the majority of Kashmiris, Pakistan does not even figure in their minds when they take to the streets protesting against injustice? Indeed, barring the marginal Hurriyat faction of Syed Ali Shah Geelani, no other political leader talks about going to Pakistan. Neither does the majority among them demand a complete separation from India.
Many of those in New Delhi and Srinagar who swear by the argument that Kashmir should be resolved “politically” because it is a “political issue” fail to comprehend what this really entails. Simply put, it means that we can win Kashmir back only by making a convincing political argument, by devising a politically conscious reconciliation process, and by being sensitive to the many injustices the Kashmiris have suffered.
(Happymon Jacob teaches at the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.)
Friday, July 2, 2010
Migration in progress: from print to the web
Migration in progress: from print to the web
Pranay Gupte
The online ad business, excluding mobile ads, is set to expand to $34.4 billion in 2014 from $24.2 billion in 2009. Newspapers continue to suffer from a decline in advertising revenue.
A prominent example of a print paper opting to transform itself entirely into a Web publication is the venerable Christian Science Monitor
With the galloping fortunes of high-technology driven portable gadgets, media organisations see the advantage of pushing content through telephony
I was dining with John Seeley in the Grill Room of The Four Seasons Restaurant, the one place in New York where the city's elite habitually congregate for their “power lunch” five days a week. Mr. Seeley, like others in the wood-panelled, Philip Johnson-designed room, is a player — which is to say that, as founding editor of The Wall Street Journal's new “Greater New York” daily supplement, he's someone whose presence is immediately noticed and whose attention is sought, even by other influential figures in a power obsessed metropolis like New York.
Mr. Seeley, a trim, bespectacled man in his early 40's, wears his power lightly; he's an old friend, and one of the finest editors I've worked with. He takes his work very seriously, not the least because his new section is competing head-on with The New York Times' formidable local report, both in print and on the Web.
One of the topics we discussed was the decline of print publications and the question of whether major newspapers should put up a “pay wall” for the content they offered on the Web. The proprietor of Mr. Seeley's paper, Rupert Murdoch, is an enthusiast of the pay-for-content concept; The New York Times has announced that it will start charging visitors to its popular Web site for much of its content.
This topic may not have dominated conversation at every table of The Four Seasons Restaurant. But it would be safe to assume that it was lodged in the minds of the media tycoons there. On this day, the restaurant's other diners included a variety of top media figures, including Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek International, and host of CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS; he was lunching with Henry Kissinger, the former U.S. Secretary of State, who privately advises media companies. ( Newsweek has put itself up for sale, and the prospects of a financially viable future seem grim.)
Mortimer Zuckerman, publisher of The New York Daily News was there, too; his paper's print circulation has been steadily declining, as is that of its Murdoch-owned tabloid rival, The New York Post. In another corner, the former U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin was eating with Vernon Jordan, arguably the closest friend of former President Bill Clinton, and a former member of the board of Dow Jones, which publishes The Wall Street Journal. Mr. Rubin is co-chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, a prestigious think tank whose Web publications have been winning awards as well as more and more visitors. Still another diner was a top executive of Condé Nast, which recently shut down the bible of the food industry, the monthly magazine Gourmet, and is reviving it as a Web offering.
Upturned in the U.S.
“Print versus Web” is a topic that has upturned the media industry in the United States, and in many other countries, resulting in significant job losses for print journalists. In 2007, there were 6,580 daily newspaper around the world, including nearly 1,500 in the U.S.; by mid 2010, the overall figure is down by 500, while newspaper revenues have declined by a fifth on account of an advertising fall precipitated by the global recession, as well as a migration of many advertisers to the Web.
A prominent example of a print paper opting to transform itself entirely into a Web publication is the venerable Christian Science Monitor, the Boston-based newspaper that was founded in 1908 by Mary Baker Eddy. It shut down its daily print edition on March 27, 2009, citing losses of $18.9 million per year versus $12.5 million in annual revenue. It now offers content online on its Web site and via e-mail. John Yemma, the paper's editor, says that the move to go digital was made because the management recognised that the Christian Science Monitor's reach would be greater online than in print. He says that in the next five years the Monitor will aim to increase its online readership to 25 million page-views, from the current figure of five million.
In the United Arab Emirates, the daily business daily, Emirates 24/7 — which is owned by the Dubai Government company, DMI — announced a few days ago that it, too, would terminate its print edition. Like the Christian Science Monitor, Emirates 24/7 will be published daily solely as a Web newspaper.
While newspapers generally are suffering from a decline in advertising and subscription revenues, rising newsprint costs simultaneously besets them. U.S. East Coast prices — the barometer of global rates for newsprint — rose to nearly $600 a tonne in January 2010, compared to $464 in August 2009. Moreover, new contracts concluded after March 2010 include an additional $50 a tonne. (Indian publishers for whom newsprint constitutes the single largest cost element — accounting for 40 to 60 per cent of total cost, are bracing themselves for this rise, even though newsprint is current exempt from customs duty; publishers import 50 per cent of the 1.8 million tonnes of newsprint used annually.)
Here's another set of statistics that should be sobering for the print industry: The online ad business, excluding mobile ads, is set to expand to $34.4 billion in 2014 from $24.2 billion in 2009, according to a report released last week by PricewaterhouseCoopers. The same report says that newspapers continue to suffer from a decline in advertising revenue. According to the Newspaper Association of America, print advertising revenue dropped 28.6 per cent in 2009 to $24.82 billion. The PricewaterhouseCoopers report estimates that print advertising in newspapers will drop to $22.3 billion by 2014. It also estimates that mobile advertising in North America will quadruple from $414 million in 2009 to $1.6 billion in 2014.
With the galloping fortunes of high-technology driven portable gadgets such as Apple's iPad and the new iPhone4, media organisations clearly see the advantage of pushing content through telephony. This doesn't augur well for the print industry, although, of course, its decline may not suggest imminent demise.
Still, as The Wall Street Journal's John Seeley told me, smart media organisations are revving up their digital technology. “You need to be where the readers are,” he said. The Journal is in the comfortable position of having a daily print circulation of 2.09 million, compared to 952,000 for The New York Times. Neither paper is taking its relatively high print circulation for granted — both are spending fresh sums of money on boosting print circulation through ads and provocative marketing. But both are also accelerating their Web operations.
(Pranay Gupte is a veteran international journalist and author. His next book is on India and the Middle East.)
Monday, June 28, 2010
‘It was not a case, it was a tragedy': Nariman
‘It was not a case, it was a tragedy': Nariman
The only thing the government has done correctly — it should have been done 14 or 15 years before — is to increase the compensation, if they genuinely believe that the victims have not got their amount.'
Fali S. Nariman, 81, is one of India's most illustrious lawyers and constitutional jurists and a former nominated Member of the Rajya Sabha. His recently published autobiography, When Memory Fades (Hay House, 2010) is a fascinating read in which he devotes one chapter to the Bhopal gas leak case in which, as senior counsel, he represented Union Carbide Corporation. In an interview with Karan Thapar on CNN-IBN's Devil's Advocate, Mr. Nariman re-looks at the issues from a reflective distance and offers his insights and impressions of what may be in store. Edited excerpts from the interview:
Mr. Nariman, after 25 years and after all that's been revealed and has emerged, do you regret accepting the Union Carbide brief?
Well, let me put it this way, If I had to live my life all over again, as a lawyer, and the brief came to me and I had foreknowledge of everything that later came in, I would certainly not have accepted the civil liability case which I did.
So, in other words, with hindsight, you would have said no?
Yes, only with hindsight.
Looking back at that time in 1985, when you accepted the brief, did you see this largely or simply as a legal case rather than as a national tragedy and, in that sense, was that the mistake you made?
Yes, I think so. Because I thought this was one more case which would add a feather to my cap. I mean one is always ambitious at that age. But I found later – but then it's too late, one can't walk out of the case one has already taken up – that it was not a case, it was a tragedy. And in a tragedy, who is right, who is wrong etc., all becomes marred in great deal of justifiable emotion.
The settlement
There is something very interesting embedded in the beginning of your answer – one can't walk out of a case once taken. But that does suggest that whilst you were the lawyer, you were beginning to have regrets about accepting the brief?
This is why I was very happy when, at the court's suggestion, the compromise ultimately took place: of civil liability between $500 million-odd, which the government was suggesting ultimately, and $350 million, which the Union Carbide suggested. And then I left it to the court and the court fixed $470 million.
I think the court had this problem before it. This was only an interim order. You remember, this was an interim order directing us to pay compensation, from which we came to the Supreme Court, Union Carbide came to the Supreme Court.
Let me raise this issue with you. This whole matter, after 1989, went into appeal, the appeal judgment came out in 1991 and, at that time in the appeal judgment, the Supreme Court said that it was unlikely that the settlement would be found to be inadequate. The Supreme Court has been proven to be hugely wrong. But that apart, the Supreme Court then said that in the event it was inadequate, those who fall ill thereafter would be the responsibility of the Government of India, totally letting Union Carbide off the hook. Was that fitting and fair and proper?
Because it's a settlement. There is no question of fitting and fair because if it had been a regular hearing, which [means that] after looking at all the documents and taking the evidence they had found that there was liability, then it would not be fair. But if it was without admitting liability that this sum was paid up, then the question was, and this was again argued in the second round, who should be liable. And the court said unanimously it is the government only which would have to foot the bill.
You are saying two very important things to me: that perhaps the victims, and the need for adequate compensation, would have been better served if a settlement hadn't been reached but a proper case for liability had been fought.
That was the dilemma. If that had been fought, it would have taken more years.
But it would have got a better outcome?
But the victims wouldn't have been helped because, in the meanwhile, what?
Unreformed tort law
So there was a trade-off between the time a court case would take and the fact that the settlement might not be as good as a court outcome but it would be quicker and faster. Is that right?
Let me tell you one thing. In tort cases, the law has been, right through, that unless liability is ascertained and fixed, there can be no interim compensation. In England, they altered that by statute long, long ago.
We haven't done it in India.
We haven't done it as yet.
As a result of which we wanted an interim settlement, we wanted a quick settlement and as a result of which the liability was never established in a court case. Let me put the second critical question to you. Would you today, maybe with the benefit of the hindsight, accept that at the end of it all, the settlement was inadequate and therefore unjust?
No, no I don't think so.
But surely it was inadequate? Surely, you accept that?
I am not sure. I have no means to say that it is inadequate. I think the fault perhaps is not only the quantum of the settlement, if you put it like that, but the delay in its distribution.
The delay in its distribution is explained in the manner in which the procedure and the law works in India but the quantum of settlement has turned out to be derisory not just for those who died but also for those who were crippled and disabled for life as well as those who were marginally injured. You surely must accept that the quantum is inadequate.
The inadequacy arises because there was a very large sum of money which was sought to be distributed amongst people living in certain areas not by reason of what they suffered but by their living in those areas. This was the problem.
As a result of which too many people qualified?
Too many people qualified.
Plight of hardcore victims
So the amount given shrank miserably?
Whereas the hardcore really suffered. So if you ask me, the answer would be yes, qua the hardcore victims.
What you are saying is qua the hardcore victims, the settlement was inadequate?
Yes.
And therefore, qua the hardcore victims, the settlement was also unjust?
Yes.
You accept both?
Yes.
Government will not succeed
Let's turn now to the steps the Government of India is trying to take today in 2010, in a sense to remedy the situation. First of all, they want to reopen the settlement with the hope of increasing the compensation. Do you think that's likely to succeed?
No, I don't think so.
Why?
Because a settlement is a settlement and unless there is some fraud involved, it's never reopened.
Even though, for the very hardcore, the settlement has turned out to be inadequate and unjust. Even then the settlement can't be reopened?
Yes, because the court had, in fact, stated that even assuming it was wrong with regard to the quantum, it would be the responsibility of the government to make up that extra amount.
But the same judgment that you cite, of May 1989, also ends by saying that the court would not leave people in despair. Doesn't that hold out a small hope that if the government goes back and proves that there are people in despair because the settlement was inadequate, it must be re-opened?
I don't think so. That's not my reading of the judgment. My reading of the judgment is that since there are, maybe, more victims or the compensation may not be sufficient, it would be the government's duty because it is the government which took over all the victims' claims by that special Act.
So if compensation has to be enhanced today, it is for the government to enhance out of its own coffers. You don't believe the Supreme Court of India will reopen the settlement and increase the compensation paid by Union Carbide?
Yes, I believe so.
So that settlement of 1989 is full and final, full stop?
Yes.
Criminal cases and Section 300 CrPC
The second thing the government is trying to do is to prosecute Keshub Mahindra and six or seven others under 304 (2). Do you believe that is likely to succeed or do you see it as an essential breach of the Code of Criminal Procedure?
I don't know very much about that criminal case, or judgment. I have just seen a copy of the judgment. I haven't examined the 10,000 pages of events because I was not in that trial court in Bhopal.
But Section 300 of the Code of Criminal Procedure says that a person cannot be tried for the same offence, with the same facts, twice. Would re-opening the case, even under 304(2) rather than 304(A), amount to a breach of Section 300?
Yes, because 300 not only says another offence, it says for another offence, based on the same facts, involving a higher degree of punishment. So that for the same set of facts, you cannot have another offence and convict them, either on appeal or otherwise, and then say that they are liable to a higher degree of punishment.
Just to be absolutely clear, what you're saying is the attempt of the government to re-prosecute Keshub Mahindra and others under 304(2) is going to be a breach of Section 300.
Yes, absolutely.
It's illegal?
Yes, of course it is. And therefore my contention is whether Justice [A.M.] Ahmadi was right in dropping that charge under Section 304(2) or not is an irrelevant consideration at this stage. He could have been challenged when the trial was going on.
But not now?
Not now.
But the point is that the belief that the government can re-open the case and now charge Keshub Mahindra under a higher offence, 304(2) rather than 304(A), is a belief that has been emboldened by the advice of the Attorney General.
Then you'd better ask the Attorney General.
But you believe the Attorney General is wrong?
Of course.
So once again the government is intending to do something that would be wrong, that would be illegal, and would be struck down?
You see, this only raises the expectations of everybody.
To dash them?
Ultimately to dash them, but then public memory is short.
Once again the government is embarked on something which legal luminaries like you are saying is wrong and will not succeed?
I wish you had asked somebody who was not acquainted with the case and he will probably confirm it.
Finally, the government is also attempting, one more time, to extradite Warren Anderson. The man is 89. What are the chances of success?
It looks grim to me but if they have any means to do so, well, certainly they can do it.
What lies ahead?
Then what is the point of these three exercises, because you've made it clear, as a leading lawyer, that they are unlikely to succeed? They are probably wrong in law and they would be struck down by the court. So what purpose will be served?
The only thing which the government has done, in my opinion, correctly — but it should have been done 14 or 15 years before — is to increase the compensation if they genuinely believe that the victims have not got their amount.
So all that the government can do is pay more from its own exchequer but the attempt to re-prosecute, the attempt to open the settlement and get more compensation, as well as the attempt to extradite Warren Anderson, all three are unlikely to succeed?
Unlikely is correct.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Africa's angst – and nirvana
Africa's angst – and nirvana
Rajiv Bhatia
If African governments give greater priority to Asia rather than the EU and the U.S., they would discover that Asia, stretching from India to Japan, has much to share with them.
As World Cup drama unfolds on the African soil for the first time in history, it may be apt to examine the question: Whither Africa? This is particularly relevant as 17 African countries celebrate completion of 50 years of their freedom this year.
Since the ‘scramble for Africa' among European powers for establishing colonies in Africa in the 19th century, the continent has come a long way. On its journey, it has passed through a cycle of exploitation, stagnation, hope, setback and subsequent explosion of new expectations. The past decade seems to have witnessed the second ‘scramble', the competition among ‘old' powers — the U.S. and the EU — and ‘new' powers — China, India, Russia and Brazil, not to speak of ASEAN, Turkey and Iran — to re-engage Africa. Will the coming decade see African countries moving on the road to faster development?
What is required is a realistic evaluation of how Africa has performed in the years since Ghana became the first country to attain Independence in 1957. The late 50s and early 60s represented a special moment in African history as country after country overthrew the colonial yoke. This was the age of hope and of giants such as Nkrumah, Kenyatta, Ben Bella, Senghor, Lumumba and Nyerere. Soon, however, hopes were belied as parts of the continent were engulfed in conflicts. Africa had been caught in the vortex of post-colonial tensions. Neo-colonialism and cold war-related compulsions ensured that both democracy and development suffered enormously. According to one calculation, Africa went through 70 coups and 13 presidential assassinations between 1960s and late 1980s.
Regenerated optimism
The past two decades have regenerated optimism. The end of apartheid and emergence of a democratic South Africa was a big boost. In 1994, there were only eight democracies; today the number is 35. Economic performance has been improving. Between 1995 and 2005, GDP growth rate increased, averaging 5 per cent in 2005. Projections for 2011-12 indicate that growth would be between 4 and 5 per cent. However, these figures can hardly conceal the stark reality of poverty and its brutal consequences in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Television images of emaciated children, teenaged soldiers brandishing guns, and congested urban settlements infested with crime still define our idea of Africa. News stories about disastrous impact of HIV/AIDS, grossly inadequate facilities for health and education and poor governance continue to pour in. Besides, new challenges such as climate change, likely conflicts on water, energy security, and deepening marginalisation in world affairs complicate the situation.
Are Afro-pessimists right then in claiming that Africa's angst would not end in foreseeable future? Africa has been running behind other regions of the world in achieving the Millennium Development Goals. UNDP estimates that, by current trends, Africa would be unable to halve extreme poverty by 2147 AD.
I do not share this pessimism. Having spent seven and a half years in Kenya and South Africa and having travelled extensively in these countries as well as elsewhere on the continent (i.e. Lesotho, Ethiopia, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mauritius, Egypt and Algeria), I have experienced, first hand, a strong yearning for change. The role of that deep yearning in hastening transformation is important. I have also witnessed talent, creativity, hard work, discipline and dedication on part of youth, women, civil society, media and business. They do not merely clamour for change; they have been working for it.
My considered view is that Afro-optimists are right in maintaining that Africa's turn too will come. But the important stipulation is that it will have to do more to achieve it. This task would become easier if its key international partners become more enlightened and less selfish.
What more can Africa do to secure its salvation – nirvana if you please, from poverty, disease, corruption, conflict and marginalisation?
Mbeki's prescription
Thabo Mbeki, South Africa's President from 1999-2008 and an intellectual giant, offered a thought-provoking prescription at an address in Pretoria on May 27, 2010. Referring to a World Bank report, issued in 2000, which suggested how Africa could “claim the 21st century,” Mbeki observed that its suggestions were “correct and unexceptionable,” but he emphasised that two important elements were missing. One was the need for Africans “to recapture the intellectual space” and to develop their “intellectual capital” so that they themselves could define their future. The second was the need to take necessary steps to ensure that Africa occupied its “rightful place within the global community of nations.”
In order to achieve its goals, suggested Mbeki, Africa should consider the following “Six Steps Forward”: build and nurture intellectual cadre committed to transformation of Africa; develop the capacity of state, government, business, and civil society institutions; resurrect African Renaissance Movement; achieve African cohesion resulting in Africa speaking with one voice on matters of common interest; and develop the media and means to communicate correctly about Africa's present and future. In my view, Mbeki's suggestions deserve wider attention.
About Africa's role in the world, the old colonial mindset seems to be alive and kicking. Recently a senior French minister called Africa “our El Dorado”, a legendary city of gold. France reportedly wants to ensure broader influence in Africa, seen as “a frontier for profit-making.” Many American, EU and Chinese companies seem to share this perspective.
Will Indian companies be different? Will they give to Africa as much as they receive from it, if not more? This is perhaps what Ratan Tata had in mind when he recently recalled that South Africa had been a victim of “exploitative and extractive enterprise”. He suggested that India and South Africa could have “a different relationship”, one based on mutual benefit and genuine partnership. His advice applies to all Indian companies operating in Africa, not just in South Africa.
Friendly governments such as India can certainly help Africa in its efforts to increase its representation in the institutions of global governance. India should take the lead in extending strong support to Africa's demand for greater representation in G-20.
Many African governments have let down their peoples. They will have to shape up. But, people's real hope lies in strengthening the triad of civil society, business and African Diaspora. The more these stake-holders contribute, by working together, towards empowering public opinion and curbing negative tendencies of governments, the more they will bring the day of salvation nearer. International partners should help by creating a stronger synergy with this triad.
A word of advice for African governments: they need to craft their own version of ‘Look East' policy. If they give greater priority to Asia rather than the EU and the U.S., they would discover that Asia, stretching from India to Japan, has much to offer and share with them.
At India-Africa Forum Summit in Delhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh spoke of India's wish “to see the 21st century as the Century of Asia and Africa with the people of two continents working together to promote inclusive globalisation.” These words struck a chord in many African capitals.
Amidst a rising crescendo of excitement before the World Cup began, South African President Jacob Zuma proclaimed grandly: “Africa has arrived.” Maybe, but realists are unlikely to agree.
Mother Africa would have “arrived” when democracy, peace and progress touching all her children, prevail on a lasting basis.
( A retired diplomat now, the writer served as India's High Commissioner to South Africa and Kenya.)
Private Treaties harm fair, unbiased news: SEBI
Private Treaties harm fair, unbiased news: SEBI
P. Sainath
There is indeed a vital link between paid news and private treaties. One is in the political sphere . And, second, in the sphere of business and commerce.
While the draft of the Press Council of India's yet-to-be released report on the ‘Paid News' scandal links that trend to earlier devices like ‘Private Treaties' and Medianet, the Securities & Exchange Board of India (SEBI) had already written to the PCI a year ago, warning of the possible outcome of Private Treaties. Interestingly, the letter was from the Officer on Special Duty of SEBI's Integrated Surveillance Department.
The SEBI letter warned that “Private Treaties may lead to commercialisation of news reports since the same would be based on the subscription and advertising agreement entered into between the Media group and the company. Biased and imbalanced reporting may lead to inaccurate perceptions of the companies which are the beneficiaries of such private treaties.”
“It has been observed that many media groups are entering into [these] agreements, called ‘Private Treaties,' with companies which are listed or coming out with a public offer, for a stake in the company and in return providing media coverage through advertisements, news, reports, editorials etc.” So wrote SEBI to the Chairman of the Press Council on July 15, 2009.
“The Press has the role of providing fair, unbiased news to the public and financial press has to play an independent role of providing crucial, timely and factual information to investors,” SEBI wrote. “It is our concern that such agreements may give rise to conflicts of interest and may, therefore, result in dilution of the independence of the press vis-a-vis the nature and content of the news/editorials in the media of companies promoting such agreements.”
“It is understood,” wrote SEBI, “that Private Treaties are agreements between media groups and companies to promote and build ‘brand' of the company through print or electronic media which the media group owns, in exchange for shares of such company.” The letter has attachments which consist of printouts “from the websites of some of these media groups, listing out the companies with which the media group has such an arrangement and explaining the purpose thereof.”
After a series of stories in The Hindu on ‘paid news,' particularly during the 2009 elections, the Press Council, taking note of the issue, asked the Election Commission of India for its opinion on the matter. The Press Council had already set up a two-man subcommittee to inquire into and prepare a report on the subject. The report of that committee (detailed in The Hindu, April 22: Paid news undermining democracy: Press Council report) is yet to be released. Their draft report ran into rough weather, with a few Council members opposed to naming names. (Which the report does extensively, though providing substantial space to the rebuttals and denials of those named.)
On Thursday, the Election Commission of India directed chief election officers of all states to give serious attention to the paid news phenomenon which, it said, “is assuming alarming proportion as a serious electoral malpractice, has been causing concern to the Commission in the context of conduct of free and fair elections.” The ‘paid news' trend now seems firmly identified as a corrupt practice. The ECI has called for “maximum vigilance” so that the incidence of paid news “in the context of elections is arrested.”
Meanwhile, the blocked PCI report also links ‘paid news' and 'private treaties. One of its authors, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, told The Hindu: “There is indeed a vital link between paid news and private treaties. One is in the political sphere [which is paid news]. And second, in the sphere of business and commerce [i.e. Private Treaties].” The draft report dwelt on the nature and extent of those links at some length — again naming names quite plainly. Mr. Thakurta also says that the Private Treaties were “robbed of some of their sheen during the 2008 financial crisis that saw stock market indices plummet.” That's when ‘paid news' came in as a device that bypassed tax laws while flouting electoral laws and norms. And which also worked for politicians who could now exceed the poll spending limits without fear of getting caught.
In its letter to the Press Council Chairman, SEBI worried that “though the Press Council has Norms of Journalistic Conduct, which require journalists to disclose any interest that they might have in the company about which they are reporting, no such requirement exists in case of media companies holding stake in the company which is being reported/covered.”
The SEBI letter urges the Press Council “to take up this matter and consider the following: 1) Disclosures regarding stake held by the media company may be made mandatory in the news report / article/editorial in newspapers / television relating to the company in which the media group holds such stake.
2. Disclosures on percentage of stake held by media groups in various companies under such ‘Private Treaties' on the website of such media groups be made mandatory.
3. Any other disclosures relating to such agreements such as any nominee of the media group on the Board of Directors of the company, any management control or other details which may be required to be disclosed and which may be a potential conflict of interest for media group, may also be made mandatory.”
The authors of the Press Council inquiry in fact reproduced these recommendations in their report. However, owing to the resistance of a few PCI members, the final report is yet to be released. SEBI concluded its own letter with these words: “As free and unbiased financial press is crucial for the development of securities market, particularly with respect to aiding the small investors to take a well-informed decision, it becomes imperative that steps be taken to address this issue at the earliest.”
Bhopal gas leak case: all is not lost
Bhopal gas leak case: all is not lost
Sriram Panchu
The government should arrange for a current calculation of compensation requirements, provide the balance funds, and ensure speedy disbursement.
The verdict in the Bhopal gas leak criminal case convicted officers of Union Carbide India Ltd (UCIL) for rash and negligent acts causing death, and imposed the maximum penalty of two years. The offence arose from the leakage of methyl isocyanate gas on December 2, 1984 from the company's factory, which caused the death of several thousands of people and maimed several lakhs. Predictably, there is outrage not just at the disproportion between the consequences of the act and the sentence. It is deeper because the victims have got a raw deal on all fronts. A Group of Ministers, now examining action, met on Friday and is to finalise the recommendations shortly.
A revisit of events shows that the Government of India (GoI) bears responsibility in several ways. It allowed the plant to be located in a thickly populated area, with the knowledge that it was handling toxic gas. Its inspectors failed to enforce safety standards. Its culpability increased several fold after the world's worst industrial disaster took place.
The GoI took over the right to litigate, exercising the power of parens patriae, and thus prevented the victims from filing suits through their lawyers. It did not match this power with results or responsibility. It filed a suit in the U.S. court where it laid a claim for $3 billion on behalf of the victims. The last thing the Union Carbide Corporation USA (UCCA), the holding company, wanted was to be a defendant in its home country. It would face American tort lawyers, the most aggressive breed of the legal profession, who commonly secure verdicts or settlements for huge sums. The case would come before judges who are used to managing mass party actions efficiently, and a jury of common people, who could be expected to react to the magnitude of the suffering. The GoI lost on the preliminary issue of jurisdiction; Judge Keenan of the U.S. District Court sent the case to India. Round One to UCCA.
During the 26 long years taken to give the verdict ( the responsibility for which is also laid at the door of the Indian legal system), two major events took place, ensuring that the case was a lost cause even before it went to trial. On February 14, 1989, the GoI agreed to a settlement with UCCA before the Supreme Court. It agreed to accept $470 million, 15 per cent of its claim, in full settlement of all civil and criminal claims arising out of the disaster. (Round 2 to UCCA).
The GoI's justification was the delay in Indian courts, and the immediate necessity of providing relief to the victims. The protective parens patriae did not think it fit to provide such interim relief from its resources, which would have made this settlement unnecessary. The GoI did not give the Bhopal victims prior notice of the settlement. The resulting outcry led to the Supreme Court modifying it two years later; the criminal cases were resuscitated; the monetary settlement and cessation of civil liability stayed undisturbed. However, Justice M.N. Venkatachaliah, writing for the majority, held that if the figure of $470 million was not adequate to compensate the victims, the GoI should make good the deficiency. This arose, he said, from the circumstances of the case and the obligations of a welfare state. A dissent on this aspect was entered by Justice A.M. Ahmadi, who asked why the Indian taxpayer should be burdened with this liability when the government had not agreed to bear this liability and was not guilty of wrongdoing.
In 1996, a two-judge Bench diluted the charge from Section 304 para 2 ( knowledge that the act would cause death ) to Section 304 A (rash and negligent act causing death) of the IPC. The penalty came down from 10 years to 2. (Round 3 to both UCCA and UCIL). The GoI defended the case and lost it. It is settled law that the court does not interfere with the trial of a case unless the complaint or charge sheet, accepted without demur, does not make out the offence. The charge sheet clearly stated that the factory in Bhopal was deficient in many safety aspects, its design and safety measures provided by UCCA were deficient, safety norms were not adhered to, factory officers failed to alert the district administration in time, and that all concerned had knowledge that the release of the gas would cause lethal destruction.
The District Court and the High Court found that a prima facie case had been made out by the prosecution requiring the accused to face trial. It would take the strongest legal reasoning to reverse this stand especially given the facts of the case. Justice Ahmadi's reasoning, contained in one paragraph, fell well below this mark. He startlingly held that “Even assuming that it was a defective plant and it was dealing with a very toxic and hazardous substance like MIC, the mere act of storing such a material by the accused … could not even prima facie suggest that the concerned accused thereby had knowledge that they were likely to cause the death of human beings.” In his view, the charge had to make out that the accused had knowledge that by the very act of operating the plant “on that fateful night,” they were likely to cause death. This would mean that the knowledge and the acts are restricted to that fateful night. Logically, it would follow that only the plant operators on duty that night would be liable; those who designed and operated it with deficient safety systems would not be. The GoI accepted this judgment, failed to ask for its review or for a larger Bench to hear the matter, considering that the court was dealing with a disaster of epic proportions.
The Group of Ministers will doubtless examine the legal options of reviewing the Ahmadi judgment, and securing Warren Anderson's presence (he jumped bail, and UCCA and he were declared absconders after they kept away from the trial in Bhopal.) The GoM may also examine if civil and criminal proceedings can be launched in the U.S. against Union Carbide and Mr. Anderson. Judge Keenan's order would be no defence for them, since he predicated it on their accepting the jurisdiction of the Indian courts. All these are difficult courses given the passage of time, conclusion of the trial and the cap on civil and criminal liability.
One remedial action remains, which is what the victims need foremost, and that is entirely in the hands of the GoI. Justice Venkatachaliah made it clear that the GoI would be liable to make good any shortfall in the compensation amounts. The compensation of $470 million was premised upon the number of about 3000 deaths and 30,000 injured. Over the years, the death and injury toll attributable to the gas leak is far higher than what was then officially recorded, with succeeding generations inheriting the health and environmental disabilities. A recent estimate puts the figure at 5,74,367 victims. The GoI should now arrange for a credible current calculation of compensation requirements (its claim in 1986 was for $3 billion), provide the balance funds itself and ensure speedy disbursement. Public policy and moral and legal considerations demand that it does so.
(The writer is Senior Advocate. srirampanchu5@gmail.com)
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Hunger and the market
Hunger and the market
HARSH MANDER
A difficult life on the margins... Photo: Sumit Dayal
For the destitute and the disadvantaged, however old or infirm, the choice is between undignified, low-paying hard work or hunger. There are no safety nets provided by the State or communities…
The engagement with markets of destitute, powerless, socially isolated and devalued individuals, who try to daily battle hunger, and feed their dependants is always highly unequal and unjust. One striking universal finding in our studies of hunger and destitution was that however infirm the destitute are, however sick, however challenged to feed small children alone or themselves, there is no prospect for food unless and until they work. If begging is also considered work — and it should be because it is arduous and both physically and psychologically stressful — then this is virtually a universal rule that applied to every highly disadvantaged person we met in the course of our field studies.
Marti, an aged woman in Rajasthan, illegally cuts down trees from the scrub forests near her village, and burns these to make coal so that it is not too heavy to carry and sell in the market. She remarks fatalistically, ‘Let us see how long I will live. Once my body refuses to move, I will not be able to make coal and then I will starve. As it is, I am down to eating one meal a day'. Many old widows, who can barely walk, take on work of grazing cattle on hillsides. Antamma in Andhra Pradesh also goes to the forest to gather wood to sell and wild shrubs to eat, but twice in the past month she fainted while in the jungle. They persevere with enormous determination, but a time will come when their spirits start to ebb. Starvation and eventual death is inevitable.
No succour
Old people need to work regardless of whether they live separately or with their grown sons; they still need to contribute to the household in productive ways. In finding work, old people have to depend on the local economy, since migration as an option is ruled out physiologically and culturally. The migration of young people does create opportunities for work for aged people in villages, and also for single women and disabled persons, but since employers know they are desperate and powerless, they therefore pay them very low wages, often nothing more than food, country liquor and a new set of clothes every year. The work they are offered is low paid and physically difficult like cattle grazing on steep scrub hillsides with little foliage, weeding, sewing, cutting grass for fodder, cleaning cowsheds, husking and drying grain and gathering firewood and dung and similar activities that require work that is exacting and toilsome, and payment exploitative. Even this is always offered like charity to the unproductive and undeserving, rather than as a rightful claim to work.
This is ultimately the story of every day of every destitute life: the stark merciless choice between back-breaking undignified work, or hunger. There was no third choice, of well earned retirement and rest, of secure care, of adequate social security organised by the State, or by local communities and families.
Kamala in Rajasthan talks of her drift to the dangerous and stigmatised vocation of brewing illegal liquor. She remarks bitterly, “Who will give work to a widow? Everyone thinks she is searching for a man”. She lost her husband to TB when she was very young, but she could not take off even one day to mourn, as she had to feed her three small children. She was driven away from her husband's land by his brother, and cleaning cowsheds in the homes of the Patels brought her little more than stale food. She mortgaged her few belongings, but finally turned to brewing liquor. She collects mahuapods from the forest and ferments them for a week, adding many unsavoury ingredients. It is a dangerous vocation, on the dark side of the law. She has to regularly bribe the police, and the rowdy men who flock to her hut each night to get drunk are the same men who ostracise her by day. Although she is redoubtable and fierce, she is still a woman, and the drunks sometimes pay her less and even smash her earthen pots of liquor if she protests.
We found that most disabled adults were engaged in hard work which ‘ able-bodied' people were unwilling to do. We encounter Dhanu from Orissa and Kava from Rajasthan, both severely disabled, but fed and given a roof (but no walls) by their brothers, in return for hard unpaid labour of grazing goats and cattle. When Dhanu runs after the goats, the sores on his legs start bleeding. He cannot even hold an umbrella upright during the rainy season due to his finger-less hands, and so he returns home drenched after days of rain. When we visit Dhanu, his goats are suffering from some contagious disease. He is tense and anxious not only because the goats are his only companions; but also in case the goats are to die, what then would become of him? His brother would not continue to give him food and he could not hope to get any other work. Kava is older than Dhanu, born with a congenital physical disability. Both his legs are joined, and he cannot walk, only crawl. Kava's hands are full of sores because he takes his brothers' sheep to graze in the stony hill terrain in return for food at his brothers' home.
The markets are found to discriminate grossly with these people from the margins not just in work and wages, but also in extending credit. Old people are mostly rudely turned away when they seek food on credit from shopkeepers and trying to buy groceries on credit is always a humiliating experience. Shopkeepers say that there is no guarantee how long old people will live; they may slyly slip away to the other world without repaying their loans. Kampalli can never coax credit for food from the kirana shop as she is too old to be credit worthy, therefore she often just sprinkles salt on boiled rice and gulps it down with water, no dal, no vegetables. It is even harder for an elderly widow. Somi says, “When my husband was alive, we never had a problem finding credit, even though he was mentally slow. A man can get credit from anywhere, he can ask many people. But a woman is turned down more firmly.” They find that shopkeepers charge them more and give them less than their due because they are too weak to protest. Single women report that even formal banks turn them away, as do even many self help groups. If credit is extended by shopkeepers and landlords to those who have no assets to mortgage, they must pay for this dearly with labour in their farms or homes for low wages and long hours, especially for single women. This is indeed the resurgence of a new kind of short term bonded labour.
Humiliating
Many people with disability testify that even the thought of going to the kirana (grocery) shop stresses them greatly, but still there is no escape from it as the kirana shop not only provides them with many of their daily needs, but also at times is the only source of credit. So they weather visits to the shop in spite of routine dishonour and indignities. Indradeep is routinely refused credit from the shopkeeper, even though his son earns as a migrant labourer. The dealer tells him each time to come back the next day. When he returns the next day, he is told the same thing. He listens and goes home helpless and empty-handed. “Sometimes I wish that I was alone, then I would have managed somehow, but with a family it is very different. I can beg myself, but I would not let them beg for food for anything in the world.”
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Mystery surrounds TISS survey findings on Bhopal gas tragedy
Mystery surrounds TISS survey findings on Bhopal gas tragedy
Mahim Pratap SinghAP Activists from various human rights organisations and non government organisation participate in a protest rally demanding extradition of Warren Anderson, the head of Union Carbide Corp. near U.S. consulate in Kolkata, on Tuesday. Photo: AP
Whether it was bureaucratic callousness or political cover-up, the fact that the only comprehensive survey of Bhopal gas victims ever to be undertaken has yet to see the light of day 25 years later is likely to add to the controversy surrounding the disaster.
The Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) study was significant since it was the only comprehensive survey of the extent of damage wrought by the gas leak. The survey was initiated just two weeks from the date of the leak in 1984, while the victims were still visibly suffering from the consequences of inhaling deadly methyl isocyanate gas.
“It was much more comprehensive than any other government survey done till date and could have revealed some important information. That's probably why the State government never made its findings public,” says Satinath Sarangi of the Bhopal Group for Information and Action.
The survey was conducted by TISS along with the students, faculty and staff of several other social work institutes from all over India. A total of 478 students, 41 faculty members and 13 staff members covered 25,259 households in a period of six weeks.
The TISS team visited Bhopal at the request of the then Commissioner of Relief and Rehabilitation for gas victims. Since the State government refused to finance it, the survey was funded by the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust.
“Our team reached Bhopal on 8th December 1984,” says TISS Director, Dr. S. Parasuraman, who was a member of the survey team. “We then went back to Mumbai to organise the survey and returned to Bhopal towards the end of December. The survey started on January 1st and was completed in the second week of February,” he says.
Filled survey forms were handed over to the State government which promised to return them to TISS once they were processed for data.
However, this never happened even after repeated reminders to the then Chief Minister Arjun Singh.
“It was a truckload of data and TISS did not have large frame computers to process it then,” says Ms. Armaity Desai, former Director of TISS, who headed the survey team.
“Since the MP government had the computers, CM Arjun Singh persuaded us to leave the data with them. They later asked us for an analysis of the data which we sent and that was the last we heard from them,” says Ms. Desai.
Asked whether there was a political motive behind the concealing of data, she concurred. “What else could it have been since the survey findings were so crucial and complete? I even intimated Rajiv Gandhi about it when he visited TISS in 1985 but nothing came out of it,” she says.
And did she talk to Arjun Singh about it? “He would be the last person I would talk to since he was the one who probably buried it all,” she replied.
The survey findings included information about the number of people dead, orphaned children, pregnant women, lost domestic animals, injuries, breathing complications, and blindness among other crucial data.
The findings of the survey probably remain buried in old files of the Directorate of Gas Relief and Rehabilitation. J.T. Ekka, Director, Gas Relief and Rehabilitation refused to talk about the issue after repeated attempts.
“It was a cover-up bigger than most would imagine. It would have determined the exact scope and extent of the damage and compensation. No wonder the government buried it,” says Abdul Jabbar of the Bhopal Gas Peedith Mahila Udyog Sangathan.
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