SC-appointed amicus curiae-Is it useful?

Judging from press reports in regard to the Supreme Court-appointed amicus curiae(friend of the court), Raju Ramchandran, in two recent cases, one wonders whether this specific appointment is really serving any useful purpose in objectively and impartially assisting the court. The two cases are:The SC-appointed SIT's findings on Narendra Modi and his Gujarat govt's alleged involvement in the 2002 riots and the November 2008 Mumbai terrorist carnage in which the lone surviving convict Ajmal Kasab is facing death sentence. The role of the amicus curiae-Raju Ramchandran, appears quite dubious. It seems more like performance of a defence lawyer rather than that of a "friend of the court". In the Modi case, the gentleman cast doubts on the SIT report to the metropolitan court, reportedly exonerating Modi and his govt; instead, he seemed to favour the Modi-accusers like the IPS officer MS Bhatt, himself facing charges and is under suspension; he also reportedly pleaded in favour of criminal Kasab, describing him as a minor terror accomplice deserving mercy!

Given the above facts, shouldn't the apex court look into the necessity and utility of the institutional appointment of an amicus curiae?  

Supreme Court verdict on 2G scam indicts UPA

When one looks at the terrible saga of scandals that have pock-marked the Congress-led UPA govt., the pathetic roles of the Congress president Mrs Sonia Gandhi, her nominated Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and her spokesmen like Kapil Sibal, stand out. The pre-eminent characteristic of the two top leaders is their long, unbroken silence and inexplicable reluctance to communicate with the Indian people who are desperately and angrily seeking answers to their questions and doubts in regard to their rulers' incompetence and cynical indifference to corruption. The arrogant and sanctimonious behaviour of the team of party lawyer spokesmen headed by Sibal, is hard to believe. They have done immense damage to the Congress image that was already badly dented.

In their earlier phase when likes of Kapil Sibal, Manish Tewari and Abhishek Manu Singhvi were trying to malign and destroy Anna Hazare's anti-corruption movement, the popular outrage against them was so great that the party leadership discreetly chose to keep them out of the press briefing circuit. Habits die hard. In the wake of the Supreme Court's February 2 verdict cancelling 122 2G licenses illegally allotted by the then Telecom Minister A.Raja, Kapil Sibal was arrogance and cyncism personified. When most observers and media commentators called the apex court judgement "a historic indictment" of the Manmohan Singh govt., Sibal was insisting that the PM had been "vindicated"! Curiously, Sibal did not seem to realise that he was, in fact, implicitly indicting Manmohan Singh and the then Finance Minister P.Chidambaram by claiming that A.Raja was not listening to their advice in favour of the auction of the spectrum. If that was the case, were both of them-Singh and Chidambaram, not guilty of the abdication of their responsibility to stop their junior colleague from going ahead with a clearly "fraudulent" and "illegal" decision to give the 2G spectrum to "friendly" companies at the 2001 price at a huge loss to the public exchequer? Does this not amount to connivance-a silent acceptance of a criminal act?  

MP Owaisi's communal rantings

Asaduddin Owaisi, the chief of the Majlis Ittehade Muslimeen(MIM) of Hyderabad (Andhra Pradesh), is a Member of the Indian Parliament (Lok Sabha) who never tires of swearing by the Indian Constitution and the secular, multi-religious, multi-cultural character of India. But, if you probe him a little, you will find this England-educated, affluent Hyderabadi who speaks English fluently, as a most bigoted, inflexible, closed mind who is an arch-enemy of the right of freedom of expression of writers like Taslima Nasreen of Bangladesh and London-based, India-born, novelist Salman Rushdie whom he perceives as anti-Islam.

One can understand Owaisi's anger against Rushdie's work of fiction:The Satanic Verses which had unfairly treated Prophet Mohammed's wives by giving their names to some prostitutes in his book. Even I-a non-Muslim-was appalled on reading it. I understand that following a wide-spread protests in the Muslim world and Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa of death on Rushdie, the author had apologised for his objectionable act. The fatwa was subsequently revoked following Khomeini's death. Recently, in a TV interview (NDTV), Rushdie disclosed that the Satanic Verses has been translated in at least three Muslim countries-Egypt, Turkey and now Libya.

But, Owaisi will have none of it. For him, Salman Rushdie is an anti-Islam devil, a blasphemer who cannot be forgiven although the opening verse of the Quran describes the Allah as "the most compassionate and merciful-ever forgiving"! Owaisi even does not like Rushdie's Booker Award winning work:The Midnight's Children". However, the most objectionable and undemocratic aspect of Owaisi's opposition to the writer, is his denial of the latter's right to travel to his mother country-India-on his PIO card which requires no visa. He was in the forefront in opposing Rushdie's participation in the Jaipur Literature Festival recently. From all accounts, Rushdie is proud of his Muslim faith, its humane and moderate face and not an Owaisi-style intolerant Islam. Owaisi, similarly, hates Taslima Nasreen. In her case, his younger brother Akbar Owaisi, an AP MLA, a few years ago, had physically attacked Nasreen during a book function in Hyderabad, along with a group of his followers. The MP Owaisi, who supposedly believes in non-violence, never expressed any regret; in fact, he reportedly defended his brother's violent assault on her. He reiterated his opposition to her recently when some Muslim fanatics scuttled her new book launch-a volume of her autobigraphical series, called "Nirbasan"(Exile), in Kolkata during the literary fair in the city.

In a TV debate on Times Now news channel, Owaisi justified his pernicious and illegal act when he was asked by the anchor how could he know about the contents of the book without reading it. His contention was that knowing Taslima's anti-Islamic bent of mind, he had the sense of what it would contain-a most ridiculous argument. Yet, Asaduddin Owaisi continues to remain an elected member of our august temple of democracy (Parliament) who is an ally of a secular, supposedly liberal Congress party that heads the UPA government! On his part, Owaisi may be relatively coy and reasonable inside the Lok Sabha to keep the pretence of democratic traditions, but, outside, he merrily spews his communal, Islamist venom in TV debates. His tone and postures are predictable but nontheless obnoxious and shocking, unworthy of a member of Indian Parliament.  
     

Sam Pitroda Congress's new OBC face

One did not expect that in the run-up to the UP elections, round the corner, the ruling Congress party and its heir-apparent-the prospective prime ministerial candidate-Rahu Gandhi, would stoop so low as to dig out the OBC caste of their favourite US-based NRI Sam Pitroda, a telecom professional who is currently working as an Adviser to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on "infrastructure, information and innovations", to try to cash it to woo OBC voters. Satyanarayan Gangaram Pitroda(Sam Pitroda) has been sharing his expertise with the Indian govt, off and on, for over two decades. No one knew his OBC background(carpenter caste), nor it was seemed necessary or relevant.

Yet, being familiar with the Nehru-Gandhi's penchant for exploiting the accursed and ugly aspects of our traditional past, in its pursuit of despicable vote-bank politics, Rahul Gandhi, supposedly a young, modern and progressive face of the party, highlighted Pitroda's caste details in an election rally in UP recently. No wonder, the party paraded Pitroda as the central figure along with a few leading Congress leaders like Kapil Sibal and Mrs Rita Bahuguna Joshi at the party's election manifesto release function in Lucknow yesterday, January 31.

Although press reports seem to suggest that Pitroda was enjoying the attention and playing along with a new OBC iconic identity, there was a lurking hint of some unease behind the facade. When asked about his caste, he said,"Today, my caste is science". Further asked if he liked the way he was being projected as an "OBC leader", his reply was:"That is Rahul Gandhi's(prerogative). I am not trying to fit into any caste and there is no question of being projected as a member of any community". Is it not a most undignified and cynical exploitation of a high-ranking professional to play casteist politics at his expense and clear embarrassment? Is it not a measure of the Congress desperation on the eve of the UP elections to pull out all stops in order to somehow win?  

Defence Minister and PM's role in Army Chief birth year controversy

The UPA government is headed by Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister and he has AK Anthony as one of his senior colleagues holding Defence portfolio. Both are known to be low profile individuals of impeccable integrity and honesty. But, unfortunately, both have a record of laissez faire and being slow in decision-making, often doing much damage to competent governance. The current controversy regarding the birth date of the Army Chief Gen. VK Singh is a classic example of that drift and letting key decisions to drag on excessively, resulting in an unprecedented situation of confrontation between civilian leadership and the army establishment in which the army chief is forced to approach the apex court for justice to protect his honour and integrity in the face of an insensitive and obdurate government. The issue of the birth year of of Gen. VK Singh has been pending for many months but the Defence Minister and the Prime Minister in their strange and inexplicable wisdom clearly let the defence bureaucrats mess up things, instead of looking at the facts as produced by the army chief about his correct birth year(1951 and not 1950) sympathetically and dispassionately. Thus, the issue has been allowed to be debated in the media for a long time making a laughing stock of our official functioning. What could and should have been sorted out quietly appeared as a matter of needless conflict and controversy causing immense heart-burning in the disciplined, dedicated, patriotic defence class.

One wonders what is good of top leaders of the government enjoying a reputation of honesty and incorruptability if they are not prompt, decisive and sensitive to do the right thing at the right time.    

China offends India yet again denying visa to Arunachal IAF officer

The latest episode in a series of offensive and clearly unfriendly acts of China vis-a-vis India is the recent denial of a visa to an Indian Air Force Group Captain from Arunachal Pradesh who was travelling to Beijing as a member of an official Defence delegation. An initial press report said that the Indian govt had called off the Defence visit in protest against the Chinese replay of an earlier hostile attitude on the visa issue concerning Indian citizens from that NE State of the Indian Union. But, unfortunately, a fresh report stated that the Defence delegation's visit to China was still on, only with reduced number, excluding the senior IAF officer from Arunachal who was refused visa by the hosts!

However, being familiar with the utterly timid and cringing behaviour of the UPA govt, one was not surprised. To add insult to the injury, our External Affairs Minister SM Krishna and the National Security Adviser reportedly went out of their way to publicly agree with the Chinese ambassador in New Delhi that some elements unhappy with Sino-Indian "strategic alliance" were deliberately trying to highlight minor incidents in order to project bilateral relations in a bad light. Some Indian observers raised questions about the nature of the socalled "strategic" relations the Minister was talking about!

Judging from China's persistent arrogant and cynical anti-Indian stance, it seems that our neighbour is suffering from a chronic and compulsive itch to hurt and needle India. In the past, in pursuit of its aggressive and expansionist posture, claiming Arunachal Pradesh as its own territory, China refused to recognise the State inhabitants as Indian citizens and denied them visas to visit China even as official Indian delegates. After nation-wide protests and bilateral negotiations, China resorted to a mischievous practice of stapled visas. In an expression of solidarity with its "all-weather" friend-Pakistan, China followed similar practice of stapled visas even for J&K Indian citizens! In the face of a storm of indignation in the media and the govt, the Chinese relented, giving up the stapled visas.

Obviously, old habits die hard. Recently, China's anti-Indian neurosis resurfaced when they humiliated an Indian consular diplomat in a Chinese court room where he had gone to help two Indian employees of a trading company who had been kidnapped and tortured by some Chinese traders. Again, a national outrage against the Chinese high-handedness, forced the UPA govt to act. Beijing regretted with suitable reassurances. Yet, within a few days of that incident, we have a repeat of the visa denial. How could a major country like China which should be grateful to us for what we did to help them in the initial years of the Communist regime's birth to get international recognition and assumption of the UN Seccurity Council membership even ahead of us, be so obnoxiously and relentlessly hostile to us?

Army Chief's birth year- a controversy and PM's address to Science Congress

The unseemly controversy on the Indian Army Chief, Gen VK Singh's birth year does no credit to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government for its lack of sensitivity, wisdom and finesse to settle the matter quietly, away from the media and public gaze. Unfortunately, it has allowed the issue to drag on for long, giving it an appearance of an unprecedented confrontation between the civilian dispensation and the army establishment. It is amazing that this has happened in the ministership of a politician like AK Anthony who is known to be gentle and fair-minded. Whatever it is, it is most disturbing and distressing as it involves a highy disciplined wing of the govt. that has an admirable record of professionalism and respect for the civilian authority as required in a democracy.

By accepting the incumbent topmost General's contention about his birth date that was confirmed and registered in the army administration records with relevant documents, the government could have protected the honour and dignity of the Chief of Army Staff's high office. By rejecting his insistent claim, it was implicitly disgracing him as a liar! Was it a right approach?



PM compares India with China at the Indian Science Congress
--------------------------------------------------------------

Addressing the Indian Science Congress in Bhubaneshwar(Odissa), on January 3, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh bemoaned that China has "overtaken" India in the "world of science". It seemed a meaningless, needless acknowledgement because, in effect, he was condemning himself and his Congress government which has ruled this country for over five decades, for its unimpressive record of development in science and all other sectors of national activity, primarily because of poor budgetary allocations, misgovernance, bad planning and incompetence.

The historic humiliation of our brave soldiers on the heights of our Eastern border(now Arunachal Pradesh), in 1962 Chinese invasion, was a classic example of the utter neglect of our armed forces due to miserly defence allocations year after year that resulted in their fighting the well-equipped, well-prepared enemy in a wintry war with summer and ill-equipped gear! This sad phenomenon is still visible in several fields. Why merrily, casually refer to this huge lacuna when budget-makers and planners in the PM's team hardly bother? The PM himself cannot shirk his own responsibility as he has been holding this office for over seven years. They turn champions when it comes to allotting massive funds for populist programmes to attract votes of the poor, under the dictates of their supreme leader, Mrs Sonia Gandhi!