THIS "CLEAN CHIT" NEEDS A MACHINE WASH.

   It had to happen sooner rather than later. After educating us on what to eat, read, wear, worship, sing, who to marry and other assorted aspects of culture, it is entirely appropriate that the BJP should now want to educate the Supreme Court on how to interpret and understand plain English. The reference is to the difference between the words "is" and "has been" in the sealed cover report on Rafael presented by the govt. to the court. It was largely on the basis of this report that the court  issued the "clean chit" to the govt. on the pricing and procedural aspects of the deal. And now the govt. wants the court to correct its wrong interpretation of these words, implying that some poor Deputy Secretary or Under Secretary has a better grasp of the Queen's English than three wise judges. Here is what the govt stated in the sealed cover report:

" The govt. has already shared the pricing details with the CAG. The report of the CAG is examined by the PAC. Only a redacted version of the report is placed before the Parliament and in public domain." [ Bold fonts by the author].

The Supreme Court, quite inexplicably , read the word "is" to mean "has been" while the govt. now says that it connotes "will be"! The whole thing is quite baffling. In the first place, the govt's drafting appears to be deliberately dodgy in order to convey precisely the meaning which the court derived viz. that the CAG has examined the pricing, as have the PAC and Parliament and that therefore there is no need for the court to intervene. The clear intention is to mislead the court. Why else would the govt. not clearly state the factual position: that it has given the pricing details to the CAG, its report is not yet ready and when submitted would be put up before Parliament and the PAC, in that order? Its ambiguous choice of words was clearly deliberate. The averment that only a redacted version is placed before Parliament is also incorrect, because the govt. cannot edit a CAG report- this too is misleading. Equally surprising, however, is the court's interpretation. How could it interpret "is" to mean "has been"? Even a proxy Vyapam candidate would know that the two formulations convey entirely different meanings. It is possible, but difficult, to ascribe the mistake to a weak grasp of the English language by judges who would by now have written millions of words in their careers. Is it possible that the court was now keen  to dispose of the matter quickly, having realised that it was way beyond its depth, and that therefore a certain casualness had crept into its approach? Or was it that it did not want to take on the govt. in this make or break matter,  decided to extricate itself from the rapidly escalating political mess, and  therefore adopted the meaning and interpretation which served this objective?

  Whatever the explanation, it makes for a very confusing, contradictory and questionable order, especially in the light of the less than transparent processes followed : sealed covers, reports in place of affidavits, examining defense officers without cross examination, etc. It also boggles the mind why the govt. was given a clean chit without going into substantive issues of pricing, choice of offset partner, reasons for cancelling the earlier deal with Dassault, failure to invite fresh tenders, etc. All these issues were summarily disposed of by either accepting the govt's word at face value or invoking Article 32 to deny the court jurisdiction in the matter. There are many factual errors in the order also, which have been pointed by many legal experts: confusing Mr. Mukesh Ambani's company with that of Anil Ambani's offset firm, terming gross violations of the DPP as "minor variations", stating that the withdrawal of the earlier RFP was initiated in March 2015 when there is no evidence to support this, but plenty to disprove it. In Arun Shourie's words " by giving the official assertions a verisimilitude of legitimacy" the judgment has curtailed the people's right to know what actually transpired in the shadows. Would it not have been more circumspect and legally correct to simply leave it for the CAG/Parliament and the PAC to examine the matter and take a view on it? Surely the court could not have been unaware of the huge political implications of the case, and the consequences of any perception that it was going soft on the government?

  And the expected fall-out has begun. Mr. Jaitley and the Raksha Mantri have lost no time in proclaiming that, now that the court has absolved the govt. of any culpability in the matter and that all is now hunky dory, there is no need for a JPC: a Parliamentary Committee can neither contradict the Supreme Court nor go beyond what the court has decided. In fact, they claim, even the CAG's report has now become redundant and superfluous! The court has unwittingly handed the govt. the perfect alibi to stall any further investigation. All democratic and transparent safeguards built into the system to act as a counter check to the executive in such matters have been demolished by this one judicial order. The court should have not taken up the matter at all, but once it decided to do so it should have gone to the root of the disputed issues and decided them cogently and transparently, or referred it to an SIT for further investigation, which is all that the petitioners wanted in the first place, without pronouncing on the merits of the case. It is a contradiction for it to claim that it has no jurisdiction under Article 32, but still accept only the govt's averments and declare that it finds nothing wrong.

  This does not bode well for the future: for if the court itself will not look into the matter for lack of jurisdiction, and the CAG or Parliament or the PAC cannot do so because the court finds no occasion to doubt the govt's assertions and accepts them at face value, then the govt. ( either the present one or a future one) has been given a blank cheque for all kinds of malfeasance. This surely could never have been the intention of the court. This order needs to be revisited. Immediately. 

" IT'S THE ECONOMY, STUPID ! "-- OR IS IT ?

 That famous phrase- " It's the Economy. stupid !"- was employed successfully by Bill Clinton's election team to win the 1992 election against George WH Bush. It's being used used again by our resident pundits to explain the BJP's trouncing in the elections concluded on the 11th. of this month. This serve- all explanation is self-contradictory and only part of the truth. Because, by all accounts and conventional parameters, the Indian economy is not doing badly at all: inflation is well under control, GDP growth is at 7.2%, NPAs have declined for the second straight quarter, manufacturing has picked up, the stock markets are still on the up, fuel prices are declining, higher rates of MSPs have been announced, the kharif production is higher than the previous year. The Plan B explanation is that it is the farmer who has done the BJP in, beset as he is with drought, rising input costs, a slump in prices, the weight of unpayable loans. There is some truth in this, but it is not the whole truth and it gives the BJP apologists an easy way out to explain its massive loss. Because it is not just the farmer who feels betrayed by the BJP, it is the entire cross section of society and occupations.

   Consider this: the BJP's vote share even in the urban areas of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan has plummeted drastically: from 75% to 25%, 90% to 55% and 95% to 63% respectively in these three states: the agriculture crisis cannot account for this. Economists tend to hijack the results of every election by appropriating the economy as the sole determinant of voting patterns, This is a myopic view, especially in a country like ours whose sheer size and diversity defies simple nostrums. For the fact is that there are many other factors that predicated the BJP's loss, and all of them are related to the style of governance and the personalities of its top two honchos, the CEO and the COO.

  They say pride goes before a fall, and that is exactly what has happened to Messers Modi and Shah. They never even bothered to conceal their abject contempt for the entire Opposition, and constantly demonised and vilified Rahul Gandhi and his family, their hatred for them assuming pathological proportions which in the normal course would require expert psychiatric intervention. Their facile call for a " Congress mukt Bharat" betrayed their despotic tendencies. This has now backfired on the BJP in three significant ways: one, the constant spotlight on Rahul Gandhi has made him a larger than life figure, embedding him securely in the public gaze even though the Congress kept losing one election after another, getting him free TRPs and eyeballs which he had not really earned, just as it did for Mrs. Gandhi post 1977, enabling her victorious return in 1980. The constant badgering made a fighter out of an otherwise unassuming, laid back Rahul Gandhi; pushed into a corner, he had no option but to fight back. Mr. Modi commuted a part-time politician into a full time contender. And finally, of course, the Prime Minister forgot the Indian voter's latent compassion for the underdog, a trait of our Hindu religion which has no place in the BJP's version of Hindutva. Mr. Modi has paid the price for his egotism this last week.

   Second, the law of diminishing returns has set in on the BJP's Hindutva and minority bashing curriculum; the average citizen is beginning to tire of it and is now refusing to read from this toxic script. The BJP should have realised this from their earlier by-election losses in UP, Bihar and Rajasthan, but the invincible duo failed to see the light, blinded as they were by the glare from their self acquired halos. And so the likes of Adithyanath, Giriraj Singh and assorted foul mouthed spokespersons and bought- out TV anchors continued to spew their hate and execration, evoking a revulsion from populations which have lived peacefully with a dozen different religions for hundreds of years. People have now begun to realise that the venomous Hindutva of the BJP and RSS is a political doctrine, not a religious one, and that this party cannot be allowed to be the gate-keepers to the world's greatest religion. And that is why these seeds of hatred and division sowed by the likes of the UP Chief Minister on the campaign trail did not sprout.

  Third, Mr. Modi made the cardinal mistake which all closet dictators do- assuming that the voter/ citizen is a fool who is quite content to be led by the nose. He assumed that your average bharatwasi  knows little, and cares even less, about affairs of state and government. And so he and his handpicked team went about driving a coach-and-four through every institution of good governance: Parliament, Planning Commission, Election Commission, the CBI, the RBI, the Universities, autonomous academic and research organisations, even the higher judiciary at times. The Defense forces were politicised for electoral purposes. The police in BJP ruled states became an adjunct of the gau rakshaks, as typified by the manner in which the investigations into the murder of a police Inspector in Bulandshahar are proceeding. Kashmir is sought to be bludgeoned into submission, with not even the pretense of a dialogue with our own fellow citizens. Legislations like the National Register of Citizens and amendments to the Citizenship Act are being rammed through to create an India in the image of the BJP. The Damocles sword of the Ram Mandir is sharpened every few months to keep the communal cauldron boiling at all times. Farmers are lathi-charged, shot, evicted from the path of the Bullet trains; the tribals are being dispossessed from their forests and lands to make way for big-ticket projects so that the Prime Minister can obtain another international citation for Ease of Doing Business. For the plain truth is that this is a government without any compassion, it has an EVM where the heart should be, it is antithetical to the humane values of a country which has produced a Gandhi, a Vivekananda, a Buddha. It is a mutant and the people are now beginning to recognise this and to reject it.

  And so, while the colossal failure of the BJP's economic policy disasters have undoubtedly caused the citizens much pain, it would be foolish not to recognise the non-economic factors that are also in play. It is the latter in fact that is now making even the middle classes abandon the BJP. Universally, the middle class does not like instability or social stress, which appears to be the sole agenda of the BJP. Fault lines that had been slowly filling in in the last five decades- social, religious, regional- under the enlightened leadership of stalwarts who are now the object of Mr. Modi's derision are being re-excavated and widened. The country is increasingly uncomfortable with this balkanisation of a nation, the assertion of a false and exclusive identity, the anger and hatred that is being injected into its life blood. No political party is entitled to extract this price for petty electoral gains. THIS is the message of the recent elections: govern with a heart, not a 56 inch chest.

  

WHY ARE CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE ENVIRONMENT NOT ELECTION ISSUES?

   The election delirium is upon us again, and political parties are busy churning out 100 page manifestos, recycling the same trash they regurgitate every five years: reservations, subsidies, loan waivers, free power and so on. This time we also have the complimentary adds on- temples and statues, rising higher and higher in inverse proportion to the plummeting standards of public discourse. And as usual, nobody is even talking about the elephant in the room. already in "masth" mode: climate change and the environment. The manifestos are completely silent about them, and the nearest the candidates come to them are when they talk of building toilets ( to be subsequently used for storing fodder, naturally).

   Which is a pity and a mad made tragedy in itself, because we as a country are staring natural disaster in the face but continue to grin like idiots. We have the third worst ecological footprint on the planet, after the USA and China. The effects of climate change are already upon us- record temperatures, floods, droughts, extreme weather events, the old templates no longer relevant. It has been predicted that countries in South Asia will lose 30-40% of their agricultural output by 2050. The govt's own Economic Survey 2017 has estimated that the loss in agriculture production every year due to climate change is US$ 10 billion, or Rs. 70,000 crore at current exchange rates. According to the Lancet Countdown 2018 report on Health and Climate Change released last week India  lost 75000 million man hours of labour in 2017, equivalent to one year's work for 7% of the working population ( the figure was 40000 million in 2000). 80% of this was in the agriculture sector, and we still wonder why the farmers are protesting ? Pollution related deaths ( already at 0.50 million per annum for India) will rise exponentially, heat waves have killed 9000 people in the last three years, migration of environmental/ climate refugees will overwhelm our cities. 24% of our lands are already degraded and headed for desertification, all major rivers are heavily polluted, ground water levels are depleting alarmingly with 60% of the blocks classified as water stressed, we have lost 10.60 million hectares of original forests in the last 14 years, we have been eradicating other living life forms at a galloping rate- in just the last two years the list of endangered species has gone up from 190 to 443 ( IUCN figures)  Apocalypse is round the corner, and all our politicians can ask is who was Mr. Modi's father or whether a mosque is a place of worship?

   We as a nation have always had a dismal record of protecting our natural environment or of respecting the rights of other species to live, notwithstanding our ancient vedic philosophy. But the track record of the present BJP govt. at the centre is particularly appalling. In its pyrrhic and single minded quest for a top slot in the Ease of Doing Business ranking it is decimating the environment on a scale not seen before, and destroying the livelihoods of those most dependent on it: tribals and poor farmers. The Forest Policy and various enactments are being re-written to enable diversion of more forest land for industrial projects, a prime example being the Inland Waterway project on the Ganga which is being exempted from preparing either an EIA or an EMP, and for which the rare Turtle  (Kachua) Wildlife Sanctuary on the river near Varanasi is being denotified, the first time since 1972 that a Sanctuary is being denotified. EIA and EMPs are  being exempted for linear projects( highways and railway lines) and real estate developments upto 50000 sq. feet. The Coastal Regulation Zone Rules are being liberalised to permit big capital projects such as ports ( the Sagarmala project), impacting in particular huge swathes of mangrove forests that are a buffer to storm surges. River linking schemes are being pushed through without any thought given to their environmental impacts on the river basins, there are 31 such projects on the anvil. The disastrous 900 km. Char Dham highway linking Kedarnath, Gangotri, Yamunotri and Badrinath has been given the go ahead, even though it will involve the felling of more than 40000 trees and result in an unimaginably huge footprint in these highly fragile zones; the Kedarnath tragedy of 2013 has been forgotten. Protected Areas and Tiger Reserves are slowly being whittled away with the blessings of both the Forest Advisory Committee in the MOEF and the Wildlife Board, now reduced to compliant flag bearers and packed with bureaucrats instead of scientists and specialists. In just one PA, the Panna Tiger Reserve, more than 5000 hectares of prime tiger habitat is being diverted for the Ken-Betwa river inter linking project for which 1800000 trees will face the axe. An astonishing 519 "relaxations" have been given for projects in Protected Areas since 2014. The National Green Tribunal is being systematically weakened so that it can be brought to heel. NGOs who work for the environment are being harassed and their fund flows squeezed. More and more people are being displaced to join the 60 million already displaced since Independence.

   Mr. Modi's government appears to be mesmerized by big ticket projects and ventures, and will not let any concerns about the environment stand in its way. All warnings are dismissed as the rantings of "urban naxals" or interference by foreign entities who have no idea of India. But the danger and the threats are very real. Unfortunately, the victims of natural disasters and climate change will be the most vulnerable sections of society: farmers, tribals, fishermen, migrant labour and the tens of millions in urban slums. They do not have the wherewithal to protect themselves against the climatic and economic hardships that are inevitable as nature withdraws into its shell and strikes back.

   And here is what puzzles me no end: I can understand that the govt., in its hubris and arrogance, will do what it wants to do; what I cannot comprehend is why the opposition is silent on these issues too, why civil society ( which gets its danders up at even a whiff of a MeToo story) and the media don't articulate them to create more awareness during election times. Surely, someone should be telling the unsuspecting voter what awaits him in less than a generation ? Everyone wants the tribal vote, but no one tells them what will happen to them once the forests have gone, or the farmer once the aquifers dry up and the glaciers disappear, or the orchardists about the consequences of the bees and butterflies becoming extinct, or the slum dweller on how to cope when wet-bulb temperatures reach 35 degree celsius. No, we don't tell them because we have our air-conditioners and ROs and air purifiers, we buy our food from malls and Big Basket and don't give a damn whether it comes from a farm or a lab, we drink bottled mineral water anyway. We have a surfeit of politicians but not a single leader who can LEAD, rather than be led by the populist nose. For a time we deluded ourselves that we had finally discovered one in Mr. Modi but he has turned out be an ad. campaign with little substance. His renewable energy target ( for which he ironically got that UN award for the Solar Alliance) - 100 GW of solar energy by 2022- is floundering, and the best estimate is that it will not exceed 67 MW. The Ganga is dirtier today than it was five years ago, inspite of more than Rs. 4000 crores having been spent on it, which is not surprising, for a govt. which cannot clean 18 kms of the Yamuna in Delhi can hardly do any better for the 3000 km. of this once splendid lifeline. And so, while we may be the world's fifth largest economy we feature at the 177th spot out of 180 countries in the World Environment Performance Index. We were at 141 in 2016. How's that for a reality check while we line up to get our fingers inked at the nearest polling booth?

OUR RIGHT TO KNOW IS NOT NEGOTIABLE

      These last few weeks have had a bizarre quality to them, almost a Kafkaesque experience, with doses of Lewis Carol, Ian Fleming, Spy vs Spy, John Le Carre and George Orwell thrown in. The two high profile cases with the Supreme Court- Rafale and CBI- are testing the patience of both the Supreme Court and the citizens of a country waiting with bated breath for some Daniels to finally come to judgment. Rafale is clearly headed nowhere, notwithstanding the judicial sound and fury, and will soon be lost in the cumulonimbus clouds of defense secrecy, Official Secrets Act, technicalities over weaponry, government filibustering and the residual blame game over Bofors. We will hear no more of it till the sonic boom heralding the arrival of the first of the 36 planes next year.

    The CBI case, however, is much closer to our hearts because these are the guys who can walk into your house tomorrow and arrest you for having doodled on a file fifteen years ago. And so we want to, and are fully entitled to, know exactly what is happening in that famous cage carpeted with sleuths owing allegiance to all kinds of shady political and dubious entities. The CBI at the moment most resembles a Mafia organisation, with different groups reporting to their own capos, keeping surveillance over each other, planting and destroying evidence, plunging knives into each other's backs and doing the other things that promote organisational ethos and bonding. India has not seen this kind of internecine blood- letting since the time of the Mughals, and therefore we naturally want to know more of this synthesis of Mughale Azam II and Godfather III. And we certainly don't want the Supreme Court to play the spoil sport with our right to know.

   On the 20th of November the Court took umbrage at media reports revealing the gist of the charges made by Manish Sinha, DIG in the CBI, against a Minister and a whole host of senior officers, alleging bribery, coercion, interference etc. in sensitive cases. It was also livid at the leaking of Mr.Alok Verma's reply to the CVC's show cause notice to him. So outraged was the Chief Justice, in fact, that he carpet bombed everyone in the court, refused to allow any lawyer to speak, abruptly adjourned the case without assigning any reason, and retreated to his chambers. With all due respect and deference, one cannot agree with this line of action.

   In the first place, it's been almost a month since Mr. Verma was removed unceremoniously in a midnight coup by the central govt.: he immediately filed a petition in the SC against this. Even a kid in a Bihar nursery school could see that his sacking ( it was no less) was illegal, it violated the amended provision of the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act and a Supreme Court order: he could have been divested of his position only by the collegium of the PM, CJI and Leader of the Opposition. A month later and there is still no decision on his petition, and one month of his remaining tenure of three months has already been lopped off. Instead, the Court has busied itself with investigating tangential matters such as the charges against him and his replies to them. The petitioner has been put in the dock! These issues could surely have been examined AFTER  settling the legality of his removal. The government appears to be slowly achieving through the back door what it should not have been allowed to do through the front. 

   The developments of 20th November, culminating in the CJI's angry outburst- " You don't deserve a hearing"- are even more disturbing and disappointing because they are legitimising what SC advocate Gautam Bhatia in a brilliant article in the 29th October issue of the Hindustan Times calls " the jurisprudence of the 'sealed cover.' " Mr. Bhatia's piece was penned in the context of the Rafale case but is equally pertinent here, because the Court is insisting on the same confidentiality here. He points out that the "sealed cover" is being resorted to time and again by the court- Rafale, NRC case, Judge Loya case, and now the CBI case. He is critical of this process because it is "a court driven opaque and secret process" and because it " involves the court in a secret dialogue with( in most cases) the state."

   One has to agree with Mr. Mr. Bhatia. Why should there be a kind of gag order in the CBI case? Here is a premier organisation investigating the most important economic and criminal cases in the country, its senior most officers are at war with each other, its politicisation is nearly complete, it is subverting justice on a regular basis, its functionaries appear to be indulging in large scale corruption, investigations are being fixed. Why should the public not be told about this fecal state of affairs, all being carried out on the tax payers' moneys? Why should we not be told what the charges against various officers of the CBI are, and what their responses are? Why should we not be informed of the names of corrupt bureaucrats and politicians named by Mr. Sinha in his petition? This is not a matter that concerns the judiciary alone, the ordinary citizen is even more concerned because it impacts his life more than it does the judges who still have a degree of defense against crooked and rampaging policemen, which the Joe in the street does not have. It is the same Joe who probably votes for that politician, pays the salaries of these bureaucrats, has to deal with these policemen on a daily basis.

   No, sir, the jurisprudence of the sealed cover is a deviation from the settled principles of law. It imposes an opacity in what should be a transparent process; it confers a protection on the state and its minions which can only embolden them; it " infantalises" the public ( Mr. Bhatia's apt phrase) because it assumes that they are not mature or intelligent enough to make up their own minds. It smacks of a colonial mindset which is premised on the belief that only an instrumentality of the state can be trusted with "sensitive information." It also betrays a contradiction in the Court's own stand: once it admits a petition it acknowledges that some public interest is involved in it, how then can it deny relevant information on the case to the same public?

   The right of the citizen to know what the government and its agencies are doing has to be paramount in a democracy. The courts are an instrumentality to enforce this right, not to deny it. 

HOW TO CONSERVE TIGERS, MAHARASHTRA STYLE .

   Whatever one may think of Mrs. Maneka Gandhi's politics one cannot but admire and commend her commitment to the welfare of animals, both wild and domesticated. Her passion for their protection overrides her political compulsions, as is being evinced these days by her taking up cudgels against both the Maharashtra and Odisha governments ( the former her own BJP entity) over the killing of the tigress Avni by the Forest Department, and seven elephants by electrocution in these states respectively. I have experienced her fierce loyalty for these mute creatures at first hand, in an encounter I am not likely to forget in a hurry.

   It was sometime in 2001 or 2002: she was a Minister in Mr. Vajpayee's cabinet and I was heading the Forest Department in Himachal. A crisis of sorts erupted when a Himalayan brown bear in Gopalpur Zoo caught some infection and in spite of all the attentions of our wild life veterinarians, its condition worsened, and it seemed to be slipping away. One day I received a direct call from Mrs. Maneka Gandhi; she herself was on the line, no protective shield of PS or PA. And boy! was she hopping mad! For the first few minutes she let me know exactly what she thought of me, the HP Forest department, and its vets.- and her opinions do not bear recounting. She wanted an immediate update on the bear's condition, and on being told of the discouraging prognosis, informed me that she was sending down two vets from the Zoo Authority of India to treat the bear; she also offered the advice that the HP vets could be assigned to treat bureaucrats! She slammed down the phone, and by next day her vets were at Gopalpur. The brown bear recovered, and we all slunk back to our respective offices, our tails demurely between our shaking legs.

   And so it is no surprise for me that, in this respect at least, she has not mellowed down in the least. And she is absolutely right, for the killing of Avni, a three year old tigress ( also known as T-I ) by the Maharashtra govt. is nothing but a cold blooded murder by the same department which was supposed to protect her. Avni's territory lay in the Yavatamal region, a scrub forest woefully lacking in a proper natural prey base. She was held responsible for the death of 13 villagers over the last two years, even though no autopsies were conducted on the dead to positively establish this charge. The Maharashtra Forest Department's [MFD] conclusion was based on " circumstantial" evidence, which in India is usually enough even to send a man to the gallows, so what chance does a poor tiger have against our bureaucracy?

   It is now clear that the MFD has been been grossly incompetent in managing this tigress and in taking the easy way out by simply killing her. And not just her- the MFD is probably guilty of the murder of three, not one, tiger: Avni's two nine month old cubs have not been since the 3rd of November; there is little hope for them for they are too young to survive without their mother. Here are some indisputable facts that have now emerged about the culpability of MFD and their favourite shikaris:

* Even though MFD was aware that the scrub forests of Yavatmal had an inadequate prey base for the big cat, and that conflict with humans was inevitable because there were many villages there, it took no steps to relocate the tigress.

* The department, according to the Forest Minister's own admission, had been "trying" to tranquilise and capture Avni for the last eighteen months, without any success! No further evidence is needed of its incompetence. To add to this, an expert team from the Madhya Pradesh forest department ( which has plenty of experience with capture and relocation of the big cats) had offered to help but was turned down.

* According to NTCA ( National Tiger Conservation Authority) protocol, even where a man eater is involved, its elimination is the last resort, when attempts to capture it have failed. As we have seen, no genuine attempt was made to capture Avni. It is not even certain that she was a man eater. A man eating predator is one which prefers a human over its natural prey ( usually because it is too old or injured to hunt other animals), actively stalks humans, and consumes the kill. None of these preconditions were met in the case of Avni.

*  The Maharashtra FD was criminally complicit in engaging private shooters to kill the tigress without any genuine attempt to capture her. The person who finally shot her ( Asghar Ali Khan) was not even authorised to do so; it was his father, Shafath Ali Khan, who was engaged by MFD to kill the tigress. ( Incidentally, this father-son duo have terminated hundreds of wild animals- wild boar, blue bull, leopards- in similar operations).  Asghar Ali is now claiming self defence,  that the tigress had charged his team at night while they were out looking for her and he had no option but to shoot her dead. Which raises the question: what was he doing there anyway? Why was he hunting her when it was his father, not he, who had been licensed by the MFD to eliminate Avni?

* Even the claim of self defence has been disproved by the autopsy report of the tigress. According to the report reproduced in the Hindustan Times of November 10, 2018: " The bullet had pierced the lateral end of the carcass. ( If), as mentioned by the hunter that T-I was charging at them, the bullet would have pierced the upper shoulder, head, face or back if that was the case. The animal was not attacking the forest team but standing 10 meters away."

* Equally damning is another finding of the autopsy. Photographs of the dead body of the tigress show a dart sticking out of her left flank, which was used by the FD and the hunter to claim that they had first tried to tranquilise her, but the dart was ineffective. This too has been trashed by the autopsy report: " The dart only pierced the surface of the tigress's carcass, which meant that it was merely placed by the forest team to show that the tigress had been tranquillised or else the quantity would have been more." 

   It is pretty clear now that Avni was killed in cold blood, no bona- fide attempt was made to capture her, she was shot by someone who was not authorised to do so, and that the Maharashtra forest department is engaged in a massive cover up. The state Forest Minister, who has been justifying the killing from day one and shielding the guilty, has amply demonstrated that he too is complicit in the matter in some way. Both the Minister and the PCCF ( Wild Life) should be immediately sacked. The two inquiries ordered will get nowhere and shall only legitimise the cover up. What is needed is an independent inquiry, not by forest officers who will protect each other, but by a team of wild life experts. Mrs. Gandhi, who is waging a lonely battle, should demand such an investigation and/ or conservationists should approach the courts. With just 2226 tigers left in the wild ( 2015 census) India certainly cannot allow bungling foresters and crassly ignorant Ministers to preside over the deliberate killing of more of these magnificent creatures. The alarm bells are already ringing: we lost 132 tigers in 2016; Maharashtra alone accounted for 23 deaths in 2017  (NTCA figures). With this level of attrition surely we should not be eliminating more of them under the garb of man-animal conflict ?

   

WHEN WILL WE RECOGNIZE THE REAL " MAKE IN INDIA" HEROES ?

   I don't know about you, but I'm not too  excited about Mr. Modi's " Make In India" jumla. And it's not just because the the Dassault transfer of technology ( to Hindustan Aeronautics Limited), worth tens of thousands of crores over the Rafale life cycle and beyond, has been consigned to the shredder by this government. It's also because all that is being made in India these days are grotesquely monstrous statues and thousands of more dollar millionaires, demonetisation notwithstanding, or perhaps because of it. Okay, so we have a few more unicorns in ByJus and PayTM and Mr. Ambani has added another 5000 crores to his net worth. But this is all business as usual, further emphasis on the business model which promotes consumerism and more rampant ravaging of the earth's resources. As someone who is not sure whether his genes will survive into the next century ( remember  Stephen Hawkings' prediction ?) precisely because of these unsustainable business models, for me the real heroes of Make In India are not guys on the Forbes 500 list but those unknown, ignored, under-the-radar entrepreneurs and innovators who are coming up with ideas that can, perhaps, save this planet from its ordained Apocalypse. And there are quite a few of them in India, though the mainstream media, brought up on a junk diet of Hindutva , rape, corruption and poll surveys, may not have the time to report about them. So this week let us learn a bit about three of these innovators, youngsters who can change the destiny of this Anthropocene age.

   Mandar Talunkar is an engineering graduate in his early 30's who has just patented an electricity generating device that requires no fuel to produce power. All it needs is hundreds of people walking over some special flooring tiles: the pressure of their weight on the flooring creates the mechanical energy which is used to produce electricity. His system has been installed in the Nagpur railway station in a small area on a trial basis, and it seems to be working: the power generated by the tiles is used to light up four 25 LED bulbs at the station entrance, apart from powering a couple of display screens. Can you visualise the promise this technology holds out, with tens of millions pf people walking all over our public spaces, malls, airports, railway stations, even pavements? Why, we could have those wonder tiles on our treadmills at home: that 30 minute brisk walk on the apparatus every morning could generate the power needed to heat the water needed for the bath later! A DIY if ever there was one. This could, indeed, be the fabled demographic dividend that has been eluding our planners and Mr. Amitav Kant all this time!

   Next on my list is another youngster who works with that scourge of our times- plastic. Prashant Lingam of Hyderabad builds houses made exclusively from plastic! He has employed hundreds of ragpickers to collect plastic/ polythene bags from landfills, which his process turns into building blocks and tiles which go into the construction of the houses. A typical, 2 bedroom unit consumes about 2.50 tonnes of plastic ( the roof alone needs 5 million plastic bags!). These houses are better insulated from the weather than brick and mortar dwellings and therefore consume less electricity, but cost about 20% more. However, Prashant says this is all a matter of scale, and once demand picks up the unit cost will come down. The paver tiles ( 100 polybags= one tile) are a big hit with the Hyderabad City Council which is procuring them from Prashant's company for public walkways and pavements. This technology, replicated on a large scale, can be a partial solution to the problem of recycling of plastic waste. It can also offer gainful employment to thousands of the weakest sections of our populace. One crore invested by Mr. Ambani in his high profile businesses will create just one job, the same amount deployed by the humble Prashant Lingam will probably create a thousand. No prizes for guessing who India needs more here.

   The third entrepreuner, one who can give Elon Musk a run for his money, is a young Indian in California, K.R.Sridhar. His start-up, Bloom Energy, has invented a power box the size of a Bose music system which can provide enough clean power to run one American home or six Indian homes. His patented secret is a fuel cell  made of silica( beach sand) which processes clean fuels like natural gas or bio fuels and, through a chemical reaction, converts it into electricity. His invention is not a hoax or a chimera: it has inspired John Door, the venture capitalist who has invested in Netscape, Google and Amazon to put up US $100 million into the project. And it is actually working on the ground! Sridhar's power boxes have been bought by Google, EBay and Walmart and have been functioning successfully for 18 months now. They provide 15% of EBay's total power requirement in Silicon Valley headquarters and have already saved the company US $ 100,000 in fuel bills. The power is clean and off the grid.

   Why is it that we never hear of these champions of the Earth except through social media? Why is it that we never see them at all those glitzy conclaves and business summits where the same jaded personalities are paraded before a wildly clapping audience- the Chandna Kochars and Amitav Kants and Nandan Nilekenis ? Yes, they have all contributed to the economy but the time has now come to look for solutions beyond GDP, GST, Interest rates and trade deals. The Bezos, Gates, Mas and Zuckerbergs of the world have no doubt revolutionised commerce and business models and processes but their tech driven consumerism has imperiled the planet and put the future of homo sapiens in question. They have caused a tsunami of consumption and degradation of the natural environment that is the hallmark of the current Anthropocene age, which may be the last for us. We now need minds and entrepreneurs who can reverse this trend and find unconventional answers to these excesses. This is what this young group of inventors is doing, and this is precisely why they need to be recognised and applauded by governments and societies. They might just make it possible for homo sapiens to walk into the next century. That's why, for me at least, they are the real heroes.
   [ And oh! have I told you about my good wife, Neerja and her friend Mrs. Minu Sood ? They run a tiny NGO called ABHI in Shimla which works with mentally/ physically disadvantaged kids who have completely dropped through the chinks in the govt.'s welfare programmes and are more or less left to fend for themselves. ABHI's centre provides much needed counselling for their parents, physiotherapy, medical check-ups, basic vocational training, and social skills. Most important of all, perhaps, it gives them a place where they can mingle with others and escape six days a week from their lonely existence at home. And Neerja and Minu do this without any charge whatsoever, with minimal assistance from the government, which has even reduced the paltry grant they are entitled to under the Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan. They manage with a smile and help from a few friends and volunteers and well wishers. They remain unsung but they have made the world a slightly better place for those whom society has forgotten- a business model which has gone out of fashion.]

NOT REALLY A CRACKER OF AN ORDER, MY LORDS.

   The first thing I did on reading about the Supreme Court order last week on firecrackers was to get on to Amazon and buy some face masks. Because Delhi can now expect an Auschwitz kind of experience this Diwali- thousands of kilos of firecrackers stored from last year ( unsold because of the interim ban last year) will now be dumped on its hapless citizens under the garb of " green" crackers. For the Court's order is meaningless and unimplementable( at least in the short term); it is an exercise in idealistic ivory-towerism.

   The order states that only " green" fireworks-i.e. those that do not contain aresenic, barium nitrate or aluminium, are of low decibels, and do not emit smoke, will be allowed. But the country does not manufacture any " green" fire crackers at all; the cops have no way of distinguishing between the green and the dirty, they also possess no sound meters. So we shall be exposed to the same Sivakasi and Chinese stuff, no doubt labelled " green" or "eco-friendly". Take the time limits imposed by the court: between 8.00 and 10.00 PM for Diwali and 11.55 PM and 12.15 AM for Christmas and New Year. How in God's name can this ever be enforced by 30000 cops on 2 million Delhi households, each of them a potential arsonist or pyromaniac when it comes to Diwali? And then we have the suggestion that city administrations should organise " community" fireworks displays at some central point. Really? What about the poor sods who live near these points?- will they not be exposed to excessive levels of toxic fumes and gases in these concentrated fireworks displays?

   The Court also does not appear to have factored in the seasonality aspect, at least for north India: Diwali falls in November when all the meteorological conditions are tailor made for atmospheric pollution: falling temperatures, low wind speeds, winds from the north-west, wide spread stubble burning in the northern plains. These all collate to ensure that any smoke/smog that is generated during this period does not disperse and hangs like a toxic shroud over the cities and plains. This year the pollution levels have ALREADY reached levels that are seven times the safe limit, the number of patients reporting respiratory distress have already started rising- and Diwali has not arrived as yet! Surely the court could not have been unaware of this alarming context? Why then did it attempt to strike this unsustainable and inequitable balance between Article 21 of the Constitution( the right to  environmental protection) and Article 25 ( the right to profess one's religion)? Why did it not ban the manufacture and sale of crackers altogether, instead of adopting the proverbial middle path to appease the religious hardliners? I find this timidity quite inexplicable. If it can assert the right of a few vociferous women to enter a temple ( there was no ground swell of demand for this), how can it deny the rights of tens of millions to  clean air to breathe? Is the former right more important than the latter? Pertinent questions, but the answers are more difficult.

   Methinks the court really had no choice, given certain developments over the last couple of years, and perhaps therefore decided to adopt a realistic, rather than an idealistic, approach. I don't know how to put this except to say that, having burnt its fingers more than once, it has decided that discretion may be the better part of valour.

   It all began with the Jallikattu judgment last year: the ban on the bull runs aroused widespread protests all over Tamil Nadu, the order was defied everywhere till some kind of peace was brokered with a review petition. Then came the partial prohibition on sale ( not bursting, mind you) of crackers in NCR region last year, mostly observed in the breach, and criticised roundly by all good Hindus. Recently we have had the Sabarimala imbroglio, the fuse being lit by the Supreme Court's order allowing entry of women of all ages into the temple. This was surely the nadir of constitutional/ judicial collapse- the state government, inspite of deploying thousands of policemen, could not implement this judgment even partially- not one woman was able to enter the temple, thanks to endemic resistance by the "true" devotees and the priests. In between these high points of our Constitution in action,of course, we also had the protests over the film PADMAVATI . Of late another phenomenon has emerged: various BJP and RSS leaders delivering their own obiter dicta which sound almost like ultimatums to the judiciary- the Ram temple at Ayodhya must be built regardless of the judicial verdict; in fact let us not even wait for the SC pronouncement on the matter, let the govt. issue an ordinance. No one in either the govt. or the ruling party has condemned these statements.

   There were/are a few common threads running through all the above instances, and no concerned observer of the great Indian circus could have failed to observe them: open and voluble defiance of the court's orders, inability and unwillingness of various state governments to implement them, just about every political party coming out in opposition to the judicial orders on the grounds that they interfere with the practice of religion and culture, the demand for an ordinance to nullify the court orders. In fact of late it appears that the only common platform the political parties of the country, ruling and opposition, share is opposition to judicial pronouncements. This constant push back and friction is, in my opinion, beginning to take its toll. They are slowly eroding the writ and authority of the judiciary, especially the Supreme Court, and perhaps beginning to have an influence on their decision making. The failure to completely ban crackers, at least during the winter months when pollution levels are at their maximum, may be the result of this constant psychological pressure. Which, if true, will be a pity- and extremely dangerous. The "middle path" may be okay for the likes of the Buddha or Confucius but it is not what an independent judiciary needs to follow in a country slowly being dragged to the brink by an aggressive majoritarianism and a pampered minoritarianism. We expect the higher judiciary to be consistent in its pronouncements. Sabarimala was an elitist infringement on religion, the firecrackers order is an abject capitulation to religion. Neither builds trust in the courts.

FOLLOWING ONE'S CONSCIENCE ? OR THE GRAVY TRAIN ?

   Please call me out if I'm wrong, but I firmly believe that the average Indian is no longer shocked at anything that happens in this continent of Circe. Violence, child rape, lynchings, corruption, road rage, sewer deaths, exam fraud, police atrocities, political venality, bureaucratic apathy- no one bats an eyelid at these happenings, for our society and governments are so diseased that we expect nothing else. As Arun Shourie says: this is the new normal. But shocked I was last fortnight by an eight centimeter piece of news tucked away quietly on page thirteen of my paper: MECCA MASJID BLAST CASE JUDGE KEEN TO JOIN BJP. Incidentally, I have not seen this report anywhere else, not even on our breathless news channels ( the new normal?): it has sunk like a stone into the stygian depths of forgetfulness. And yet it should have made headlines for it marks an important inflection point in the decay and degradation of our institutions, which have become crumbling ruins, of interest only to some future political archeologist.

   Do you remember this judge, Mr. K Ravinder Reddy? He was the judge of the special anti-terror court who, on April 16 this year, had acquitted Hindutva preacher Aseemanand and four others in the famous Mecca Masjid blast case. This was one of the infamous "saffron terror" cases which the BJP was accused of back-pedaling. Just hours after delivering this verdict the judge had resigned from service! And, according to the report in the Hindustan Times, he has now expressed a desire to join the BJP because it is " a patriotic party" and does not have " family rule." The alarm bells, which should have started ringing when he precipitously resigned in April, have now become deafening but all we hear is the silence of the damned. Last I heard the local BJP workers had prepared a gala reception for the hon' judge to welcome him into the party, perhaps a candidate for the ticket in the forthcoming elections.

   We have become accustomed to bureaucrats joining political parties, and frankly I see nothing wrong in it: if they can bring their experience of public service and insights into public administration to bear on their political careers that would be good for the nation. But I view with deep suspicion a civil servant who precipitately resigns from service a few months before an election and decides to plight his troth to any political party. Just in the last few months two such shameful instances have been reported. The Collector of Raipur in Chhatisgarh resigned to join the BJP, and since he belongs to a dominant caste he appears to be more or less assured of a ticket. A  senior police officer did the same in UP, but he went a step further: in a letter to the Chief Minister he confessed his undying devotion to the party, expressed a wish to campaign for the BJP in the elections, and helpfully suggested that he if he was made Chairman of some state PSU he could use its resources to strengthen the campaign! There are good reasons why I consider such people as mercenaries, and why their actions should be discouraged. 

   Their actions could not have been sudden epiphanies: most likely they had to be well considered over a period of time. And since there are no free lunches in politics, these officers would have thoroughly compromised themselves during this period in order to curry favour with the party of their choice. They would have used all the considerable clout of their offices in our colonial system of administration to bend rules, misuse discretion and exercise their authority in a partisan manner to please their future bosses. After all, why would the party accept them if there was nothing in it for them? Conversely, and equally true, why would the officers resign their powerful and lucrative jobs if there was nothing in it for THEM? A fine dog's breakfast of motives, if you ask me.

   To return to the hon'ble judge, however. If such mercenary and self-seeking behaviour is bad for our democratic system, it is positively dangerous if practiced by a member of the judiciary. This is so because there is much more finality in a judge's decisions, because he is the arbiter of what is wrong and what is right, because he has the power to convict or to acquit, because he is the last court of appeal for a citizen, because any judicial system is founded on a presumption of fairness, objectivity and lack of bias. And any action by a judge which casts any doubt on these values has to be viewed with suspicion. Bureaucratic misdemeanours can be corrected by the judiciary, similar malpractices by the latter are much more difficult to remedy. And therefore, the action of Mr. Reddy to resign just hours after delivering the acquittals in a very sensitive case with communal and terrorism overtones, and thereafter announcing his intention to join a party with open sympathies for the main accused in the case, is bound to raise some disturbing questions: Given his prediliction for this party ( and his intention to shortly join it) should he not have recused himself from this case? How objective could his assessment of the evidence have been given his ideological leanings? Could the acquittal have been a quid pro quo for a future political career? Was there a mis-trial, and can the judgement be appealed against on these grounds? Frankly, I am not a little surprised that the High Court or the Supreme Court has not taken cognizance of Mr. Reddy's sudden, suspect decision and decided to look into it, particularly his past judgments to see if there is a discernable pattern in them.

   In this MAD MAX world I find it easier to raise questions than to provide answers, and so it is in this case too. For all I know judge Reddy could have had a genuine change of heart like the great king Ashoka, or he could have seen the light like the Buddha after years of meditation on the IPC and CrPC, and decided that the BJP was the Middle Path between dynasty and disaster. In that case, of course, his departure would be a loss to the world of laws. Somehow, however, I doubt it.  

THE AADHAR JUDGEMENT: FLATTERING TO DECEIVE.

   There are times when there is more honour and glory in defeat than in victory. And so it is with the Aadhar judgement of the Supreme Court delivered on Wednesday. Justice Chandrachud's minority judgement may have been overruled by the majority of four judges but he has understood the core issues much better than them, articulated the inherent friction between technology and fundamental rights, and quite rightly pointed the finger at the "surveillance potential" of the Aadhar architecture and the likelihood of its being misused by any government. These are all issues which have been either totally ignored by the majority, or on which they have chosen to accept the government's words at face value.

   The judgement is an exercise in something the Supreme Court is getting extremely adept at: a "balancing" act. It did so twice previously in the same week: refusing to declare that politicians with criminal records could not contest elections but asking them to make full disclosure of such cases when filing their nominations; and refusing the Centre's plea to refer the issue of reservations in promotions to a bigger bench, while simultaneously striking down its earlier codicil of "quantifiable data" of backwardness for allowing such promotions. Such balancing may suit a trapeze artist but it is incongruous with the orders of the highest court in the land. It smacks of a certain diffidence when confronted with an aggressive government, an ambivalent approach best described by Dryden: "willing to wound but afraid to strike."

   I am afraid the judgement does no favours to the ordinary citizen of India: in fact, except Justice Chandrachud, the others have simply done what Usha Ramnathan, the eminent legal researcher and activist, describes as a "copy writing" and proof reading job of the Aadhaar Act- a punctuation corrected here, a clause deleted there, a proviso inserted here, a word replaced there. The majority judges have simply picked ( and struck down) the low hanging fruits which just could not have been allowed to hang there any longer: Section 57 which enabled private data to be shared with all and sundry corporates and private entities, Section 33(2) which allowed the government to access this data at will in the interests of "national security", Section 47 that did not allow a private citizen to lodge a complaint even when his own data had been stolen/breached. These were such brazen assaults on privacy and individual dignity that, after the Privacy judgement, they could not have been allowed to continue. Other than this, there is very little relief provided to the beleaguered citizen.

   The core and seminal issues that lie at the heart of the whole Aadhar debate have not  been seriously addressed by the majority judges: the probabilistic nature of biometric based technologies, the conflict between algorithms and rights, the potential for state surveillance embedded in the imperfect Aadhar architecture, the absence of strong data protection laws, the exclusion of millions from their entitled benefits, the complete lack of accountability of UIDAI Only Justice Chandrachud has repeatedly flagged these troubling issues while declaring Aadhar as unconstitutional for these very reasons. One of his observations bear reproducing:  "Dignity and the rights of individuals cannot be made to depend on algorithms or probabilities. Constitutional guarantees cannot be subject to the vicissitudes of technology."

   On these vital issues the four judges have opted to accept the government's assurances, a touching demonstration of trust and sheer gullibility given the dubious track record of the present government. They have accepted, for example, that the govt. shall legislate a robust data protection law, even though the latter has not yet even begun the process of consultation with all stakeholders. The issue about abuse of Aadhar data by state agencies has been brushed under the carpet, even though the govt. has been happily going about seeding multiple databases, is creating a national intelligence grid where all this private information can be fed, is proposing a legislation for compulsory DNA profiling of citizens, and has repeatedly defied the SC orders of 2015 to not extend the use of Aadhar to more areas. The Hon'ble judges have also inexplicably kept clear of the controversies surrounding the leakage of data of millions of people, which has been happening with regular frequency, preferring to accept UIDAI's oft repeated litany that the data is safe behind ten foot walls, when all empirical evidence suggests that it is leaking like my kitchen sink.

   The dismissal of the "exclusion" argument by the majority judges is particularly sad and lamentable. They have accepted without question the UIDAI's contention that the rate of success of biometric authentication is 99.7% even though its Chairman has admitted that in 6% cases the fingerprinting did not work, and in 8-10% cases the iris authentication was faulty. The govt's own Economic Survey 2016-17 has revealed that the failure rate in Jharkhand was found to be 49%. ( it is no coincidence that of the 24 starvation deaths attributed to Aadhaar most were in Jharkhand). One has to ask, therefore: where did the Court derive the confidence to trust the UIDAI on their claim of 99.7% success rate? And even if we accept this highly suspect figure, it still means that 4 million people have been denied their fundamental entitlements under govt. schemes. Is this so insignificant a figure that we can dismiss it's implications for the poor and marginalised?

   The unkindest cut, however, is the majority ruling that the Aadhar Act was indeed a money bill and did not have to go to the Rajya Sabha. This " fraud on the Constitution" as Justice Chandrachud correctly termed it, has been legitimised, even though the Act did not meet any one of the four criteria prescribed in Article 110(1) of the Constitution, all of which essentially require that a Money Bill should in some way have a direct bearing on either withdrawal from, or accrual to, the Consolidated Fund of India. The Aadhar Act does not even remotely do so, even though the Court bought into the govt's argument that since it involves disbursal of benefits/ expenditure under govt. schemes, it meets the requirements of Article 110. Only Justice Chandrachud saw through the chicanery shrouding this reasoning. Extending this devious logic, tomorrow even a bill on reservation or land acquisition or even Triple Talaq can be termed as a money bill because at some point or the other it will involve some expenditure by the govt! The disturbing thing about the Supreme Court's imprimatur on this "fraud" is that it will embolden this govt. to resort to this deviant practice in the future too, rendering half of Parliament superfluous to the already flawed democratic practices in our country. Oh, yes, as part of the same balancing act, the judges have held that the power of the Speaker to declare a legislation as a money bill is justiciable but that is cold comfort now that this noxious precedent has been set.

  The Court's touching faith in this govt. is totally misplaced. Noises have already been heard from some Ministers and the corporate lobby about bringing in legislation to overrule even the limited relief provided to harried citizens by this judgement. Further, in the absence of clear directions in the judgement, the govt. will exploit every grey area to adopt an ambiguous approach in issuing directions for deleting data already collected by private corporates, allowing alternate IDs where the Aadhar has failed or is not available, extending its compulsory linking to areas not specifically mentioned by the Court in its order, and so on.

   This is a judgement that cries out for review. The base for such reconsideration has been laid out by Justice Chandrachud: it is a strong foundation for a new edifice, and we can hope to see it in the future, if the past is any guide. The Court has reviewed its own orders frequently: in 1962 the majority deed not agree with Justice Subha Rao's ruling that privacy is a fundamental right, but had to backtrack on this just a couple of months ago; in 1985 in case no. AIR 1985 SC 1618 ( Sowmithri Vishnu vs Union of India ) the Court had affirmed that adultery is indeed a criminal offence, whereas just last week it has gone back on this ruling ; again, the SC had quashed a 2013 order of the Delhi High Court which had decriminalised gay sex, but again had to revise its position earlier this year; during the Emergency years it infamously held that right to life and liberty is not a fundamental right, but once again had to review this later. Both jurisprudence and society are continually evolving, and it is only a matter of time before the voice of Justice Chandrachud will be heard, loud and clear. 

HANDS OFF MY RELIGION-- WE HAVE A PATENT ON IT !

   Rolls Royce, I learn, not only has a patent on the iconic car but also imposes a condition on the buyer- if at any time it finds that the car is not being properly maintained it has the right to repossess it. The idea is that the image of the brand should not be sullied in any way. It is now apparent that the BJP-RSS combine believes it has a somewhat similar patent/ right on Hinduism. Only this conglomerate( it has more funds than most companies in India, in any case) has the right to decide the design and shape of Hinduism, the persons who can practice it, the form and substance of such practice, and the right to condemn unapproved practitioners as heretics and frauds. Competition from other brands is to be ruthlessly squashed.

   Nothing else can explain its pathological obsession with Rahul Gandhi's assertion of his Hindu credentials and the millions of bytes expended on his "janau" ( the sacred string), visits to temples, his claim that he is a "shiv bhakt". Why should this get the wind up perennially flatulent BJP spokespersons? Surely a person- dynast, outcast or iconoclast- has the right to assert his religiosity or even flaunt it during election time? After all, the BJP itself  invented this game. The BJP's paranoia with Rahul Gandhi's religion, however, plumbed new depths with its epileptic responses to the former's recent Kailash Mansarovar yatra. There appeared to be an air of panic about it, as if he had invaded their citadel. Which, in a manner of speaking, he had.

   Now, I am no great fan of Mr. Gandhi and I do believe that he occasionally does the stupidest things. Like posting the screen shot of his Fitbit to prove that he took 46000 steps on a single day on the yatra; this was to justify his claim that he completed the parikrama in just one day. This is an impossible claim, in the same class as Mr. Modi's 56 inch chest boast which even had the Great Khali trembling. The Fitbit claim was quite unnecessary and therefore naturally attracted derisive remarks on social media. Sample: the Fitbit was put on a donkey which did the parikrama. For the simple fact is that the parikrama of the Kailash is about 53 kms. over mountainous terrain, involving an ascent of 1000 meters to boot, and it would stretch the stamina of even an Iron Man athlete to do it in one day. It takes three days, provided you don't cheat. My wife and sister-in-law have just returned from there, therefore I have this information at first hand.

   But this simply betrays Mr. Gandhi's impetuosity and lack of maturity, not his lack of religiosity or an ersatz Hinduism, as the BJP has been tub-thumping. The yatra was a private affair and at no point did the Gandhi scion flaunt it as proof of his Hindu faith, or try to lend it a political colour. His initial photos on social media were also mainly about the landscape, not himself. It was only after the BJP commenced its rabid and wholly uncalled for attacks on him and started questioning the fact of the yatra itself- whether in fact he performed the journey at all, alleging that it was simply photo-op Hinduism- that he released pics of himself and his group. One erudite Union Minister, who has done his post graduation in scatology, even analysed the shadow of a walking stick in a photo to announce that it was morphed! One is, therefore, forced to conclude that the BJP will not share Hinduism with anyone else- a kind of religious oligopoly, as it were. And certainly not with the Rahul Gandhi.

   But there is more to it than just that. It is also a calculated, long-term strategy with three pincers. The first, of course, is to establish absolute hegemony over the Hindu religion- they are its sole promoters, protectors and arbiters. The second stems from its unapologetic policy of religious division of the country ( read voters). However, one of the occupational hazards of dividing an electorate as complex as India's is that you have to hang on to your share of the divided spoils for dear life and not allow anyone else to encroach on it. Even more so if in 2014 you managed to garner only 31% of the popular vote even though everything was loaded in your favour. For the BJP this means that, having spurned the Muslim and minority vote, now banking exclusively on the Hindu vote for 2019, it cannot allow the Congress any traction in attracting the Hindus ( albeit the more moderate and rational ones among them). Hence its constant endeavour to paint the Congress as a Muslim loving party- the second pincer- and deny it any Hindu space. It has been doing this relentlessly, without let up, for the last couple of years, its message amplified by a mostly spineless mainstream media, with some success. Falsehood always has the initial advantage over Truth: as someone said, the Lie was up and running even as  Truth was still tying its boot laces.

  The third part of the strategy is to demolish Rahul Gandhi's personal Hindu faith and his political secularism, not just in the eyes of the electorate but, equally important, in the eyes of the other Opposition parties. None of them want to alienate the 80% Hindu vote, the Samajwadi Party's downfall in UP still fresh in their minds. Rahul Gandhi is nothing by himself but he can be a force multiplier. If he can coalesce the others into a critical mass, that can spell trouble for the BJP. The personal attacks on him, therefore, are part of the larger strategy to discredit him as a Hindu, to turn him into a religious leper, a political untouchable no other party will want to associate with. It may work, it may not. But if it does then we shall have new gate-keepers for the Hindu faith in our country, who shall henceforth issue the bona fide Hindu certificates. What a comedown it shall be for the land of the Shankaracharyas and rishis! Did the poet foresee this?-

" Is shahar ke had mein woh din bhi likha jayega,

  Ki jinda rahne ke liye kissi katil ki sifarish leejiye." 

THE RED CARPET FOR MALLYA? MAKE HIM PAY FOR IT!

   So the Indian govt. has succumbed to the blackmail of Mr. Mallya and the British govt.'s exaggerated and misguided sense of human rights. The King of Good Times has now ensured that the good times shall continue in Arthur Road jail: he has been assured a separate cell, with TV and attached toilet ( western style, if you please), an east facing window and a private courtyard for his perambulations.  There is no mention yet of facilities such as order-in dinners, ACs or weekly trysts with bunnies but these will doubtless follow. Why on earth did our govt. give in to the British view that the upper crust are entitled to a higher standard of human rights than the ordinary citizen? Why did it not insist that a prisoner is not entitled to ask for anything more than basic and hygienic living conditions, decent food, access to health care, safety and security? Was it because the different standards for V.I.P inmates already exist in India and Mallya was simply asking for the obvious, or was it because of an eye on the 2019 elections- get Mallya back at any cost and use it to hoover in the votes? A bit of both, I suspect.

   The Jail Manual, folks, is for you and me; the VIPs are governed by another edition of the book which is not in the public domain. Sahara Shri is reported to have had a pretty free run in Tihar and was even provided conference facilities with his minions: so naturally he was in no hurry to pay up ( he still hasn't, I believe). I'm told( unconfirmed) that Mr. D Raja of 2G fame had a special block ( or cottage) where he was served bed tea on the lawns every morning, provided newspapers, and had dosa and idli delivered from his home. We've all read  Sashikala's Madam Pompadour like life style in a Karnataka jail: the plucky lady DIG who alleged that a few undemonetised crores changed hands to facilitate this was promptly shunted out. "Bahubalis" in Bihar, like Anand Mohan Singh and Shahbuddin have their own suites in prison with libraries, personal cook and gym. Mr. Lalu Yadav is allowed to spend most of his incarceration in various hospitals; currently in the Ranchi Medical College hospital post a fistula condition, he has now sought a private ward/ room because the general ward room has mosquitoes and is within hearing distance of various barking dogs . He will get his request, I'm confident- a fistula( real or imagined) will get you constipation but it can get a VIP prisoner an air conditioned ward. And all this is at the taxpayers' expense, naturally. They rob us when they are out of prison , and when they are in it!

   This is the reality of India, islands of affluence in prison for the affluent, amidst the most inhuman conditions for others.The British govt. obviously knows this, and it's not going to change in our lifetimes. So here's my suggestion: lets accept it, legitimise it, do away with the cloak and dagger opacity, stop bankrupting the state to serve these millionaire criminals, and allow the underhand crores to flow to the govt. coffers rather than to various jailors and ADGs( Prisons). Forget the concept of "punishment"- that's for( you guessed it first time) you and me. For the VIPs its all about scoring political goals or self-goals, mutual back scratching, a window dressing of "justice" to impress the voter: for them jail is only a temporary holding pen till the Rs. 20 lakh-a-day lawyers can spring them from the can. After all, we do have a glorious record of legitimising corruption: the "facilitation fee" for contracts, the "liaison officers"( usually retired senior govt. and defence officers), the "middlemen", the " agents", the exorbitant divali "gifts", Mr. Jaitley's electoral bonds and so on.

  In the days to come, now that the code of omerta among politicians has broken down, we will ( hopefully)see many Mallya clones go to jail- bankers, politicians, bureaucrats, fat cat industrialists, maybe even a well connected sexual offender or two. Many of them will have suddenly discovered the attractions of the UK, USA, Finland, Antigua etc. and decamp with the odd billion or so, and will need to be dragged back, screaming about their human right to loot and defraud. Why spend crores of our hard earned tax revenues on ( failing to) getting them extradited, or on engaging expensive lawyers to argue in the Supreme court that hydrocele is  not water in the brain but in the nuts and is not life threatening, and therefore does not entitle that crooked Chief Minister to be shifted from Gonda central jail to a Medanta luxury ward. There is a simpler solution, one from which the govt. can actually MAKE money: TIHAR REGENCY., an exclusive hotel in Tihar jail, on the lines of the seven star hostelry in Saudi Arabia where the crown prince Salman recently incarcerated his billionaires till they agreed to cough up part of the country's embezzled GDP.

   This is an idea whose time has come, and it is simplicity itself: Construct a five star hotel in Tihar jail itself ( the name Tihar Regency has a nice ring to it), with all facilities: suites, conference rooms, wi-fi, restaurants, health clubs for our VIP detainees and make them pay through their nose ( or fistulas) for it. There can even be special packages for them: "Corporate package" for private sector honchos, a "Nuptial package" for those who take their conjugal duties seriously, a "Law Maker's package" for the increasing umber of legislators with criminal cases against them, a "Serial Offender's" package for those who just can't help themselves. There could even be loyalty points for those who keep coming back to the jail, and discounts for family groups.The whole concept would be an advertising company's dream-- CONVICTED? NO PROBLEM- UNWIND AT  TIHAR REGENCY, or ACCHE DIN BEGINS AT TIHAR REGENCY or TIHAR REGENCY- THE DESTINATION FOR MOVERS, SHAKERS AND FAKERS.The hotel would be an instant success, for it would have a captive ( excuse the pun) market. Not only would the JTDC ( Jail Tourism Development Corporation) make crores but the other benefits too would be enormous: no more bribes to jailors, no more false medical certificates, no more court dockets clogged with parole applications, instant extradition of all 121 absconding fat cats now that their "human rights" to a luxurious life style would be assured. In fact, some of the inmate-guests may not want to come out, which has to be a good thing for the nation. Why, we may even have hordes of fugitives from other nations making advance reservations at the hotel, a reverse brain-drain as it were, preferring it to the hell holes of the countries looted by them. If offered to Mr. Mallya with a bottle of Kingfisher beer he may even agree to fund the hotel; if he refuses the govt. could always approach Nirav Modi or Choksi, if it can find them, that is.

   The idea would be a win-win for everyone, except of course the common citizen. But then who gives a damn about him in any case?

DEBRIEFING A JOINT SECRETARY

                                         

   Before I joined the govt I thought “debriefing “ was something you indulged in with a lady on a lonely beach, a-la James Bond in DR. NO.  It was much later that I discovered that this unhappily phrased word is a standard bureaucratic technique, whereby the incoming babu pumps the outgoing one for as much  inside information as possible without giving away anything in return ( not that the departing babu is eager to impart any meaningful information either- after all, information is power these days). It requires great skill, particularly in the Ministry Of External Affairs, where esoteric words like “ non-paper” and  “demarche” and "note verbale" create an impenetrable wall of meaningless drivel for the uninitiated outsider. The Word was invented to convey meaning, but in the world of diplomacy it is used to conceal any meaning whatsoever. I once asked a senior American diplomat what exactly was meant by the phrase "free and wide ranging discussions" between heads of state. He answered with a smile: " Oh that; it means that there was blood and gore all over the floor!" As Will Durant observed: To say nothing, especially when speaking, is half the art of diplomacy. For, as I discovered for myself, the real secret about diplomats is that they are trained to say something when there is nothing to say, and to say nothing when there is something to say. Extracting any meaningful information out of a diplomat is like trying to squeeze a peg of single malt from Mr. Nitish Kumar.

In the year of our misguided Lord VP Singh 1990 I was posted as Special Assistant to Mr. IK Gujral who was then the External Affairs Minister. He instructed me, meticulous as he was, to obtain an exhaustive briefing from every Divisional Joint Secretary so that when their files started arriving in the Minister's office they would make more sense than the Dead Sea Scrolls, which are as nursery rhymes compared to the cabbalistic code which passes for notings in MEA files. Now, Joint Secretaries in the MEA are designated like latter day potentates- JS ( Americas), JS ( Western Europe), JS  (Africa) and so on, as if they had carved out the globe amongst themselves, in the manner of the British, the Dutch and the Spanish in the good old colonial era.  (Actually, they have, and woe betide any mandarin from any other Ministry who dares to trespass on their turf without the potentate’s say so !). Working my way through Western Europe, Eastern Europe and Africa I finally arrived in the room of South Asia, a slightly portly Bengali gentleman, clearly weighed down by the problems of his intractable empire. It was a post lunch session, and I got the distinct impression that he had secreted a “ rossogolla” in his mouth. " What," I asked him astutely, " is our geo- political strategy in our neighbourhood ?"

" Our long term plan," South Asia announced, " is to make the Indian Ocean a zone of piss."

That, I felt, was certainly a lot of piss. Moreover, since this was a couple of decades before Messers Ajit Pawar and Gadkari  made piss the fulcrum of all rural development programmes, I was non-plussed. " You can't be serious, " I protested,  "surely Sri Lanka and the Maldives wouldn't allow this !"

" They approve of our plan- after all they too are pissful nations."

" What about China?" I countered, drawing on my limited knowledge of geography.

He was ready for that left hook. " Ah! With China we have a different problem- it’s about a shit. They won't give us a shit!"

I wanted to remind him that China had indeed given us a lot of shit in 1962, some of which still stuck, but I let that pass. " Why would we want China to give us a shit ?" I ventured, " don't we already have enough of our own?"

South Asia finally pulled the flush on this inquisitive IAS Special Assistant. Triumphantly, he squared the circle and , cheeks still bulging with that infernal sweetmeat, proclaimed: " There can be no piss in South Asia until China gives us a shit in the Security Council."

I quietly left. This was one conversation I did not share with Mr. Gujral. And now we know why both peace in the Indian ocean and a seat in the UN Security Council has been evading us all this time, and why no Indian Prime Minister has ever received the Nobel Piss Prize. All because of a rossogolla in a Joint Secretary’s mouth, perhaps ?

                           

                          *                 *         

WORSHIPPING FALSE GODS IN GOD'S OWN COUNTRY.

   They are still doing the maths in Kerala, and will for some time: the number of dead and displaced, houses and public property destroyed, quantum of funds/ aid needed for the restoration and rehabilitation. Once that is over the blame game will, as usual, begin in right earnest. Lost in the din of " experts", panelists and politicians will be the the admission that Nature is being blamed unfairly for the destruction and havoc. Yes, the rains in August were about 46% above the average, but Kerala's rivers could have handled most of it if the landscape had not been subjected to gang rape by politicians, administrators, mining barons and the builder mafia. There would have been some damage, certainly, but this kind of apocalypse could have been avoided.

   If only the Centre and the state govt. had paid heed to the recommendations of the Madhav Gadgil report of 2011. After a painstaking, two year ground survey of the Western Ghats Gadgil had identified the main activities which were destroying the natural balance of the Ghats: mining, quarrying, illegal construction, deforestation and encroachment of the flood plains of the rivers. He noted that 25% of the 1,64,248 sq. kms of the WG had already been lost and recommended that 64% or 120,000 sq. kms be declared an eco-sensitive zone where none of the above activities, plus hydel projects, should be permitted. All six states trashed the report and the centre appointed another committee- the Kasturirangan Committee - to give a fresh report. The gentleman was a strange choice to begin with and it gave the game away- a distinguished space scientist he probably knew even less about environmental matters than Mr. Javadekar and Harsh Vardhan, the previous and current union Ministers for Environment. It was clear that what was expected from him was a "political" report and not a scientific one, and he obliged. He reduced the ESZ to 37% or 60000 sq. kms, half of Mr. Gadgil's recommendation. This was further reduced by executive fiat to 45000 sq. kms. by Mr. Javadekar and he also allowed mining, construction and hydel projects to continue. And here's the shocking clincher- even this eviscerated decision has not yet been implemented ! Is it any wonder then that Kerala's lovely rivers ( all of which originate from the WG and flow westwards to the Arabian Sea) have been choked with debris and landslides from denuded mountain slopes, its floodplains strangled with all kinds of unregulated construction development, its dams silted ? The correct nomenclature for the current floods is neither Man- made Disaster nor Natural Disaster but Politician- Made Disaster, with Virappa Moily and Javadekar being the presiding deities.

   There is a second cause for this calamity which has not yet been emphasised but will in the coming days: indiscriminate construction of dams and their incompetent operation. Kerala, I learn from reports, has 80 dams of which 39 are major ones. Of the latter, 36 opened their flood gates almost simultaneously precisely at the exact moment when the rainfall was at its most intense, releasing tens of lakhs of cusecs into rivers already drowning in their own waters. The contribution of these dams to the flooding of the state should not be underplayed or passed off as a routine operational hazard- by some estimates they may have been responsible for 40% to 60% of the floods. These dams were meant to prevent floods but have done just the opposite. The last great flood in Kerala was in 1924 when there were no dams at all, but the damage was much less than now. This one fact itself speaks for itself.

  Why does a small state, with abundant water availability, need 80 dams ? Second, why did the govt. or those operating these dams not heed the warning of the IMD that very heavy rains were expected in the second week of August ? The last intense spell of rains had subsided by the end of July and the dam reservoirs were already full to capacity. The New Indian Express has reported on 23.8.2018 that Tamil Nadu had warned the Kerala govt. both in May and June that the reservoirs were filling up and a phased release of water should be initiated immediately. This, along with the IMD forecast should have prompted the dams to gradually release some of the stored water during the ten day window of relatively fair weather in the beginning of August, if not earlier. Not doing so was a criminal error of judgment, and the panic driven opening of the floodgates later was an inevitability.

  Water is an inventory for dams, whether it is used for irrigation or for power generation, or both, as is usually the case. Dam authorities therefore do not want to waste this inventory, for every cusec of water has a monetary value. But water stored in dams is also a potentially massively destructive force if released in an unplanned and uncalibrated way ( as it was in Kerala). Scientific management of dams therefore demands that there must be proper, real time meteorological and flood forecasting data which could help in deciding on water releases. Unfortunately, Kerala has access to neither: IMD data is patchy at best and , even worse, the Central Water Commission or National Flood Forecasting network has no stations in Kerala. I believe they have NOW decided to set them up.
   The bare fact is that there was criminal mismanagement of Kerala's dams. A CAG audit report quoted in the 20th August issue of Down to Earth magazine pointed out that none of the dams have either an Emergency Management Plan or even an O+M manual. Siltation had hugely compromised the storage capacity of the dams. Kerala is naturally flood prone: the Rashtriya Barh Ayog has estimated that 8.70 lakh ha. ( or almost 25%) of its total geographical are of 38 lakh ha. is susceptible to flooding. Experts believe that the flash floods in Wayanad, Chalikudy, Palakkad and Raani are mainly attributable to the opening of the flood gates.
  Not that the mismanagement of dams is unique to Kerala alone. A 2016 CAG report reveals that of the 5254 dams in India Emergency Management Plans exist for only 7% of them; in 8 out of 17 flood prone states there are no integrated flood management plans for river basins either. Most dams are managed by State Electricity Boards, not flood control departments, and the former are naturally reluctant to release any water at all if it is not used for generation of power. There is a clear conflict of interest here, which has played out in Kerala with devastating consequences. The 72 hour weather forecast of IMD is not used to create simulation models for water releases; instead rule of thumb and gut instincts is the normal practice, which is incomprehensible when advanced scientific tools are available.                                                              The whole country and its policy makers should learn lessons from this calamity. There is no point complaining about " unprecedented" rainfall. Every shred of evidence about climate change indicates that EWEs ( Extreme Weather Events) shall now be the norm and we can throw the old logs out of the window. We need to prepare for these paradigm climate changes and not, like our Science and Technology Minister Mr. Harsh Vardhan, trash them because they are " carried out by foreign, not Indian agencies." We need to stop this corporate and mendacious assault on nature, if for nothing then for just the bloody economics of it. How much did Kerala earn out of all those real estate developments, mining, quarrying and power generation accruing from the serial rape of nature all these years? Whatever it was it wouldn't be a fraction of what the state will now have to spend on reconstruction, rehabilitation and lost productivity for years to come. And this does not even factor in the deaths and human misery, even if our rulers treat them as collateral damage in the cause of  "development." Tampering with nature is increasingly becoming a zero sum game.
  I hope Himachal and Uttarakhand are watching.

WHAT IS THE LEGACY OF ATAL BEHARI VAJPAYEE ?

   I'm no astute politician, nor am I a political commentator, just a retired bureaucrat who had the privilege of meeting Mr. Vajpayee only once. It was sometime in 1990, in New York in the UN Plaza hotel in the suite of Mr. IK Gujral, then our External Affairs Minister. We were there to attend a session of the UN General Assembly; as is the practice Mr. Gujral had taken along with him a group of MPs. One evening he had convened an informal meeting of the MPs to discuss his statement to be made the next day at the UN; Mr. Vajpayee was one of the invited MPs. We were all sitting around, the discussions in full flow, when he arrived, about fifteen minutes late. I immediately got up and offered him my chair ( all had been taken). He patted me on my shoulder, asked me to continue sitting, and went and perched on the window sill ! On being queried by Mr. Gujral on his unusual choice of a seat he said: " I can make a quicker exit from here!" His lack of ego and sense of understated humour were his abiding hallmarks.

  Much will be said and written about him in the coming days by people far more qualified than me to do so. But as a citizen who has as equal a stake in this country as the politicians, perhaps more so because I pay my taxes honestly, I can't help but wonder: what is the legacy of this great man? Is it the Pokharan nuclear blast, or the bus ride to Lahore, or the improvement of relations with the West, or the failure to dismiss the then Gujarat Chief Minister in 2002 ? These are certainly important milestones in his career as PM, but somehow they do not describe the man, only the politician. And that is inadequate to chronicle the life of a statesman. A colossus has to be remembered for what he was, not just what he did; for abiding values, not transactional achievements.

  Therefore, for me, Mr. Vajpayee's true legacy is that of a gentleman politician in an age when they had already started transmuting to a lower species; a sensitive soul with the heart of a poet; an aesthete who loved literature, fine wine, good food; an orator par excellence who killed with kindness, not invective and abuse; a gladiator ( he was that too, make no mistake) whose weapon of choice was the rapier, not the bludgeon; a man of rock solid principles ( ask the RSS) in an era of opportunists; a man who assimilated, not fractured; joined hearts and minds, not sundered them. His was the perfect fusion of head and heart.

  He left a second legacy too, unfortunately. This was his single handed achievement of making the BJP a mainstream party, giving it a respectability and acceptability it had unsuccessfully striven for since 1947. LK Advani may have got them the votes after his Rath yatra but it was Mr. Vajpayee who gave them legitimacy and brought the BJP to power, not only during his own tenure, but even after he was rendered incapacitated. Mr. Modi and Mr. Shah owe him this debt of gratitude: I doubt if they will concede this, however.

  It is a tragic irony that Mr. Vajpayee's first and preeminent legacy- that of a noble human being- has been squandered by those who followed him and all that is now left of it is a tattered rag or two, hanging limply in a Devil's wind. The second legacy lives on, and is perhaps even prospering. I do not think that would have made him happy for it runs counter to every grain in his DNA. On the sorry ruins of his first  bequest has arisen an ugly edifice cemented together by power, money, egos, invectives, vindictiveness, intolerance and worse. It is a cold, heartless and inhospitable  fortress he would not have been comfortable in, for it is dedicated to war and strife, not peace and harmony. And this is true of not only his own party but of all political parties in the country- the BJP is the Pied Piper and the others are rodents happy to follow the music of discord.

  Two legacies, then. One already dead, the other following the unintended course of Frankenstein's horrible creation. It must pain the great man's soul to see how his legacy is playing out.
  These were Mr. Vajpayee's words as a tribute to Nehru on his death:
" Bharat Mata is grief stricken today. She has lost her favourite prince. Humanity is sad today. It has lost its devotee. Peace is restless today. Its protector is no more... The common man has lost the light in his eyes."
  One noble human being recognizing another. Deja  vu ?