A goal is a dream with a deadline.

THE HINDU Imp. News Feb.4th 2012 Page-1 Supreme Court flays Centre over process to fix age of Army Chief: A Bench of Justices R.M. Lodha and H.L. Gokhale was hearing a writ petition Gen. Singh filed against the order determining his date of birth as May 10, 1950, instead of May 10, 1951. Solicitor-General Rohinton Nariman said the Minister's decision was based on an independent evaluation and on merits. He insisted that the issue first go to the Armed Forces Tribunal. The Bench directed that the matter be listed for further hearing on February 10. Karunanidhi rejects Sibal's accusation against Raja: If he (Kapil Sibal) has said it, the same deserves a denial. It was Kapil Sibal who, in the beginning, said that the first-come-first-served basis was followed even in 2003 when the BJP was in power. I don't know whether he was going back on his earlier opinion. If irregularities had been committed, BJP ministers in that place should also face punishment, he told reporters after the general council meeting of the party. When his opinion was sought on the BJP's demand for resignation of Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram for his alleged involvement in the 2 G spectrum scam, as the DMK Ministers had quit the Union Cabinet after allegations were made against them, he said: You have come to the wrong address to raise this question. EDITORIAL Don't tie down the India of ideas: India must rank among the world's oldest centres of ideas. Going by the texts and the inventions that have emerged from India, there must have been a time when it had an effective system of learning and instruction. However, somewhere along the way from a hoary past to a stagnant present, an institutional arrangement has emerged that is completely out of synch with the requirements of India's economy and the aspirations of its people. Perhaps the most significant shock that led to India's educational system veering off course was the introduction by the East India Company of the system of higher education in mid-nineteenth century. The significance of this is usually understood to be that the medium of instruction now became the English language. However, arguably, the medium of instruction per se mattered less than what came to be considered knowledge.
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A goal is a dream with a deadline.

Experience vs. excellence The point about the current rules is that when it comes to performance appraisal, it quantifies activity without sufficient correction for quality. In a similarly misguided vein, recruitment rules are hooked on experience as opposed to proven excellence in research. While quantitative indicators have their place, their use must be confined to those areas where they have an applicability, such as lecture hours, and resolutely kept out of everything else, as they distort the picture. The claim that they provide a transparent' index collapses when we recognise that even criteria stated upfront can be transparently poor when they are ill-suited to the task. Absentee teachers, and underperforming ones, even when they do appear in the workplace, are a very real problem especially in the vast hinterland. There is also the problem of private college managements that have no interest in education except as a profit-making enterprise. While all of this needs seriously to be tackled, the field of education poses a very specific problem. Regulation interpreted as tethering the faculty or evaluating them loosely is surely less of an objective than the furtherance of education. We need to recognise that our objective is less to tie the lecturer down than to advance learning, which ultimately revolves around how much the young have learned. This requires something more than merely devising conduct rules for the faculty. Killing creativity Furthermore, among the recognised publications, there is no place for books, considered an important part of an academic's accomplishment globally, and the expected teaching load is outrageous. Summary quantitative indicators, adopted in the name of objectivity, kill creativity and encourage the mediocre. Actually, they are only the thin-edge of the wedge in the progression, and bode ominously for the future of India. Imagine an India without an Amartya Sen, a Romila Thapar or a Venky' Ramakrishnan. The current system of governing the production of knowledge in our higher education system has come close to delivering precisely this outcome. It may be claimed that too few among India's academics have protested. But this is proof that the deathly arrangement devised to govern our institutions of higher learning has actually succeeded. The rules on recruitment and appraisal of faculty need to be publicly reviewed by an independent panel of citizens before it can do further harm. Let water, not profits, flow: As a finite, life-giving resource, access to water must remain a fundamental right. The state, as custodian under the public trust doctrine, should uphold the right of the citizen to clean, safe drinking water. It is such a strong, rights-based approach that should underpin official policy on water in India. Many areas in the country are water-stressed, and there are simmering interState disputes on sharing river waters. The National Water Policy 2012, now published in draft for public comments, should ultimately take a holistic view of the issue. The draft text makes some references to the importance of water for people and Nature, but is disproportionately focussed on treating water as an economic good.
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In the current year, for-profit private water companies in England are raising tariffs, while the publicly-owned service in Scotland is not. Just over a decade ago, water wars in Bolivia reversed privatisation moves. Evidently, private partnership imposes the burden of extra costs. In this context, the proposal to separate groundwater rights from land title by amending the Indian Easements Act, 1882 merits serious consideration. This the Centre should pursue, as the Planning Commission has suggested, during the 12{+t}{+h}Plan. Such data can persuade the States to support comprehensive legislation to address inter-State riparian issues. Again, if there is any one factor that renders much of India's water unusable, it is industrial pollution. This issue calls for urgent action, and the policy can cover major ground if it lays greater emphasis on making the polluter pays' principle work. A clean-up can make a lot more of India's water bodies and groundwater available for use by people. Coping with disasters: Nothing tests the political will and administrative efficiency of a government like a natural disaster. More than long-term development projects and poverty-alleviating schemes, it is the response mechanisms activated in times of emergency that people remember. In Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, a month after cyclone Thane' made landfall, the affected communities are still struggling to put their lives back together. Given the magnitude of destruction in the coastal areas, especially Puducherry and the districts of Cuddalore and Villupuram, normality could not have been restored in a matter of days. a lot remains to be done in terms of rehabilitation for the people who lost their homes and means of livelihood. Farmlands have been ravaged, leaving farmers and workers without any means of income during harvest time. Many have resorted to taking loans or withdrawing deposits for day-to-day sustenance. The State, which sought Rs.5,248 crore from the National Disaster Response Fund, has so far been given Rs.500 crore. Whatever it takes, the State and Central governments must speedily ensure that the people traumatised by Thane' and the North-East monsoon are able to lead a normal life again. OP ED In clash of institutions, Pakistan's Supreme Court sets the pace: In the last few weeks, the Supreme Court of Pakistan has taken up three important matters. The first was to do with the infamous memo that a Pakistani-American businessman claimed to have carried to a United States military official on behalf of the Pakistan government, asking for assistance to prevent a military coup in the wake of the Osama bin Laden raid in Abbottabad. But in a counter-intuitive kind of way, the big picture is not entirely negative: an elected government is close to finishing its five-year term for only the second time in Pakistan's history; it will also be the first time that the transition from one government to the next will likely be effected in a democratic way the Pakistan Army may only be a hair's breadth from a coup,
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but has refrained for both institutional and political reasons. It is this that gives Pakistanis some hope that something positive might yet result from all the churn. U.N. declares Somali famine over but warns of risks: The United Nations said on Friday that Somalia's famine is over, but the world body's Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) warned that continued assistance is needed to stop the region from slipping back. the U.N. said that 2.3 million people remain in a food crisis situation in Somalia and still need assistance. That represents 31 per cent of the country's population. Across the Horn of Africa region the total is 9.5 million who need help. Jose Graziano da Silva, the director general of the FAO, warned that without assistance in the region over the next three months those people will not survive. The Horn of Africa will be for FAO the most important region and we'll be doing our best here to improve food security, he said. We do believe it is possible to have a Horn of Africa free of hunger. Don't trash this law, the fault lies in non-implementation: There can be little quarrel with the argument that India requires a comprehensive policy to prevent sex selection as put forward by National Advisory Council members Farah Naqvi and A.K. Shiva Kumar in The Hindu ( India & the sex selection conundrum, January 24, 2012). That the use of sex selection technologies to abort female foetuses is linked to the increasing devaluation and disempowerment of women is well known. It is surprising however that in the complex interface described by the authors, ranging from cultural attitudes to socioeconomic pressures, they should have omitted one obvious reason for the skewered sex ratios namely, the rapid spread of dowry demands across castes, communities and geographies. The present framework of economic policies has acted as an engine for crass consumerism glorified by a powerful media. Yet another reason ignored by the authors in their comprehensive strategy, is the coercive two-child policy being promoted by governments. The Chinese implementation of the one-child policy framework along with mass availability of sex determination resulted in frighteningly unbalanced sex ratios. The Chinese government's belated recognition of this is yielding positive results. But India is yet to learn from their experience. Even today State governments use coercive and undemocratic methods to enforce the two-child norm. Hum do hamare do is often translated as Hum do hamare do ladke . The struggle against coercive laws to enforce the two-child norm is part of the struggle against sex-determination, and any comprehensive policy must target these faulty population control policies. The present campaigns of the government against female foeticide are hypocritical and superficial precisely because the government has utterly failed to implement its own law or perhaps has deliberately not done so. The strong links between sections of a powerful medical fraternity who make profits through the use of sex-selection technologies and politicians and bureaucrats has made a mockery of the legal provisions. For every million crimes of sex selection and sex selective abortions annually, only a few cases are filed in the courts and there
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A goal is a dream with a deadline.

are hardly any convictions. Since 1994 when the Pre-conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) law was enacted there have been only 93 convictions. Of the 1,036 ongoing cases, only a small percent, possibly 10 per cent, relate to charges of communication of sex of the foetus. A majority of the cases are for non-maintenance of records and non-registration of ultra-sound machines. Even in cases following widely publicised sting operations of sex determinations, no action has been taken against the doctors concerned. For over a decade, the Medical Council of India refused to change its rules to include sex selection as a ground to delicense doctors. In Rajasthan when the licenses of 25 or so doctors were suspended in 2006, following a Statewide campaign, the Secretary of the Medical Council, who was held responsible for the suspension of the licences by the medical fraternity was removed and the suspensions rescinded. The DM of Hyderabad was physically assaulted by leading members of the Hyderabad Medical Association because of his efforts to implement the law. Although the law expressly bans advertisements of sex selective technologies, Google has been advertising sex selection for the last three years after giving a commitment to honour Indian laws. Issue of accountability It is a truism that the law alone can never rid society of crimes linked to systemic discrimination and oppression. India on a trajectory of exclusive growth is strengthening and adding to inequalities based on class, caste, gender, community. Elected governments must be held accountable at different levels. Issues of women's economic rights, of employment, of rights in decision making are critical in policies to enhance women's status. Any comprehensive national response to negative sex ratios must surely include these aspects which would be of far more use than the incentives being offered through inconsequential cash transfer schemes rightly critiqued by the authors. But, in the end, the question remains: is foetus sex determination a crime or not? If yes, then the law is essential. By only targeting communication to families and ignoring mass crimes committed by unethical doctors and remaining silent on the vested interests of the ultrasound companies, India is unlikely to stop the ongoing genocide against the next generation of women. There can be no comprehensive policy framework which ignores the gross violations of the law. INTERNATIONAL Egypt continues to be on the boil: A patchwork of angry protests against Egypt's military rulers that began on Thursday following the killing of at least 74 football fans in Port Said, overnight funnelled into a giant wave of dissent that descended on the Interior Ministry, the icon of state power in Cairo. Iconic status In the struggle to democratise Egypt after the fall of Mr. Mubarak, Mohamed Mahmoud Street has acquired iconic status. In November, 43 protesters who failed to storm the Interior Ministry fell in this alley to ceaseless attacks by the security forces.

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A goal is a dream with a deadline.

Throughout Friday, protesters of various ideological hues headed towards Tahrir Square. Thousands assembled at the nearby Mostafa Mahmoud Square chanted anti-military slogans, just before commencing their march towards the Square. Hackers intercept Scotland Yard-FBI call: In a move that left London and Washington reeling with embarrassment, the hacking group Anonymous on Friday dramatically released a recording of a confidential conference call between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Scotland Yard claiming responsibility for intercepting it. The FBI might be curious how we're able to continuously read their internal comms [communications] for some time now, the group boasted in a message on Twitter linked to @AnonymousIRC. FBI confirmed the leak and said it was investigating. The information was intended for law enforcement officers only and was illegally obtained , it said adding that it was hunting'' those responsible for hacking it. Usernames are included but some of the real names of people being investigated appear to have been bleeped out. Among those discussed are two British men, Ryan Cleary and Jake Davis, who are wanted in the US for their alleged connections to Anonymous. One of the British voices on the recording also says U.K. police have made mistakes in previous investigations,'' the BBC said. Islamists win big in Kuwait: Kuwait's Islamist-led opposition has won a landslide majority in the country's snap polls by securing 34 seats in the 50-member Parliament, officials results released on Friday showed. Sunni Islamists took 23 seats compared with just nine in the dissolved Parliament, while liberals were the big losers, winning only two places against five previously. No women were elected, with the four women MPs of the previous Parliament all losing their seats. Voters punished progovernment MPs, reducing them to a small minority, especially 13 former MPs who were questioned by the public prosecutor over corruption charges. Ukraine deep freeze kills 101: Russia and Ukraine both took precautions on Friday to protect homeless people, scores of whom have frozen to death on the streets of Europe during its brutal cold snap. As the death toll from the weeklong tragedy rose to at least 169 on Friday, Russian Emergencies Minister Sergei Shoigu ordered the creation of feeding and medical-assistance facilities nationwide for the homeless. Russia has not reported casualty figures from the cold snap, which has gripped a large swath of the continent from Russia to Serbia. But Russian Deputy Health Minister Maxim Topilin was quoted by the ITAR-Tass news agency on Friday as saying that 64 people died from the cold in all of January.

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A goal is a dream with a deadline.

In Ukraine, the hardest hit country, health officials have told hospitals to stop discharging the hundreds of homeless patients after they are treated for hypothermia and frostbite. The goal is to prevent them from dying once they are released into temperatures as low as minus 32 Celsius (minus 26 Fahrenheit). Life term for Khmer Rouge jailer: A Khmer Rouge jailer who oversaw the deaths of some 15,000 people had his sentence increased to life on Friday, bringing down the curtain on a landmark first case at Cambodia's U.N.-backed war crimes court. Survivors of the regime's reign of terror hailed the decision by appeals judges to raise the original jail term of 30 years handed in 2010 to Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Judges said the initial punishment given to the former prison chief did not reflect the gravity of the crimes committed in the late 1970s at the factory of death that was the S-21 detention centre. Wearing a white shirt and a beige jacket, the 69-year-old former maths teacher sat impassively in the dock as the verdict was read out, a brief pursing of the lips the only sign of emotion. He had appealed for an acquittal on grounds that he was just following orders, but prosecutors also appealed saying the original sentence was too lenient. Potentially habitable planet discovered: International astronomers said on Thursday they have found the fourth potentially habitable planet outside our solar system with temperatures that could support water and life about 22 light-years from Earth. The team analysed data from the European Southern Observatory about a star known as GJ 667C, which is known as an M-class dwarf star and puts out much less heat than our Sun. However, at least three planets are orbiting close to the star, and one of them appears to be close enough that it likely absorbs about as much incoming light and energy as Earth, has similar surface temperatures and perhaps water. The new rocky planet, GJ 667Cc, orbits its star every 28.15 days meaning its year equals about one Earth month and has a mass at least 4.5 times that of Earth, according to the research published in Astrophysical Journal Letters . Other planets circling the same star could include a gas-giant and an additional super-Earth. BUSINESS U.S. bid to woo foreign talent: Amidst pending comprehensive immigration reform, the United States has proposed several steps, including changes in the F-1 and H-1B visas, to attract foreign skilled workforce, a move likely to benefit professionals from countries such as India. the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that on February 22, it would launch its Entrepreneurs in Residence' initiative with an Information Summit in Silicon Valley. According to the proposed changes, DHS regulation would allow certain spouses of H-1B visa holders to legally work while their visa holder spouse waits for his or her adjustment of status application to be adjudicated.
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Move for FTA with EU has car majors worried: Passenger car manufacturers in the country are worried over the government's stand on import duties under the proposed free trade agreement (FTA) with the European Union (EU). The EU is pushing for a big reduction in duty on import of fully-built passenger cars into India. The present rate of duty on completely built units (CBU) of new cars is 60 per cent and the EU is understood to be demanding that it be reduced to 30 per cent. Larger panel to validate RIL's FDP mooted: The Directorate-General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) has rejected the international panel agencies for third party validation of the capex of Reliance Industries' $1,529 million field development plan (FDP) for four satellite gas discoveries in KG-DWN-98/3 on the grounds of conflict of interest . In a latest order issued by the Petroleum and Natural Gas Ministry (Exploration Division) Under Secretary, K. K. Sharma, the Ministry has asked the DGH to prepare a larger panel of agencies so that the panel would be useful in future also. During a meeting held in September 30, 2011, the DGH decided to engage a third party validation of capex of optimised field development plan of the four satellite discoveries D-2, D-6, D-19 and D-22 in block KG-DWN-98/3. Help revive growth, Pranab to India Inc: The forthcoming Budget will focus on higher growth and keeping inflation, fiscal and revenue deficits to manageable levels, said Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee here on Friday. FICCI President R. V. Kanoria urged the government to contain the fiscal deficit by widening the direct tax base, privatising coal mines, building inventory of government assets and bringing back black money from foreign banks through a one time amnesty. CII President B. Muthuraman called for amending the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management target for reducing the fiscal deficit in the next five years in a bid to infuse a sense of discipline in raising revenue and containing expenditure. Page 5 e-governance award for Rajasthan Assembly: The Rajasthan Assembly has been selected for the national award for e-governance instituted by the Union Government's Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances for 2011-12 in recognition of its unique online answering information system. Rajasthan Assembly is the first in the country to adopt this unique system based on IT applications. Even Parliament does not have this [kind of] system, said Mr. Shekhawat. The system, evolved in collaboration with the National Informatics Centre, had been implemented in a comprehensive manner, he added. The Speaker pointed out that the Assembly is moving towards a paperless working
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with the new system's implementation. As a result, 80 lakh to 90 lakh papers were being saved in a year, he said. Justice Panta new Himachal Lokayukta: Justice Lokeshwar Singh Panta, former Judge of the Supreme Court, took the oath as Lokayukta of Himachal Pradesh here on Friday. He was also Chairman of the National Green Tribunal in 2010. Governor Urmila Singh and Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal were present during the swearing-in ceremony at Raj Bhavan. Justice Panta had also served as a Judge of the Himachal High Court and Chairman of the State Legal Service Authority. He was president of the Himachal Pradesh High Court Bar Association in the late 1980s.

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