India Political Blog

Maharashtra Chief Minister must be hoping and hoping that the problem posed by Raj Thackeray goes away in some way. He is stuck in a major problem, with the Mumbai for Marathis campaign a force that he does not want to try and put down in order to avoid making Raj seem like a martyr; at the same time, he is a Congress Chief Minister who cannot be seen to be pandering to regional forces and putting the Congress in a position where political parties from all over the country can beat upon it.
And this need for a balancing act is causing the compromise that he has effected; the police talks tough, but files an FIR and does a major drama in terms of arresting him in a way that he can be bailed out very quickly. Further, they try to stop him by issuing a gag order:

A sessions court on Thursday stayed the extension of the gag order imposed on Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray by the city police. Thackeray had filed a revision application before the sessions court on Wednesday, challenging the extension of the February 11 police order prohibiting him from holding rallies, public meetings and addressing the media.
The order was passed by the police in the wake of the MNS chief’s provocative statements against members of the north-Indian community which resulted in incidents of violence across the state.

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India’s public hospital and medical system is in a mess. Government hospitals are in a mess, catering to a massive number of patients, having doctors who are not exactly enamoured of the low salaries and bad working conditions (in fact, many doctors work to get a good experience and then parlay this experience to pick up much better salaries in the private sector), with funding constraints. One cannot even begin to compare the conditions at Government hospitals vs. private hospitals, although there are many Government hospitals that still retain a good name. However, no matter what are the reasons that have led to this condition, one expects Government hospitals to cater to the poor, the needy and not turn away anyone in need:

Twenty-seven-year-old Hemanti could not be saved but justice might still be done. Serious action has been taken against three doctors held responsible for the shocking case of medical negligence in Swami Dayanand Hospital on February 16. Hemanti, who was refused admission by the doctors on duty on Saturday night, passed away after she was forced to deliver outside the premises of the MCD hospital. Her baby, however, is reportedly in good health, a hospital source said.

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It appears that there is some amount of conflict within the Supreme Court of India, if one goes by recent judgments; there was the recent judgment where the 2 judge bench made scathing remarks about the tendency of the judges to stray into areas that are outside the judicial domain, and into areas where the legislature and executive should be responsible. They took numerous cases, such as the nursery admission case, sealings case, etc; cases where it is the responsibility of the executive to uphold law and do as per law (so, letting illegal constructions stand and creating a law to make them legal is the normal response of the executive and legislature, because there are too many pressure groups that will not allow them to act in another way).
This judgment and the comments were seized upon by politicians of all shades and hues as a vindication of their recent protests that the judiciary was over-stepping its brief; they could not care less that they are failing to respond as per law or not creating law where it is required (as another example, for handling sexual discrimination in the office-place, the current approach is laid down by the Supreme Court in a prior case, and not due to any law passed by the legislature). This judgment and the observations made were quoted in filings made by lawyers working for the Government in different cases. It is another matter that a larger bench struck down these observations as not valid, and said that the court will continue to work as it has before, helping the various junior courts that were affected by the observations of the court. Well, this seems to be happening again, although in a reverse way:

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Truly a bizarre flight. Imagine flying on a long flight between Delhi and Mumbai with all the oxygen masks hanging over the heads of the passengers. And this actually happened. Most people flying would never actually see an oxygen mask except when the air-hostess does the safety drill and shows the oxygen mask. Typically, the oxygen mask deploys when there is a problem in cabin air pressure, and is meant to allow people to get more oxygen. Thus, if this happens in a normal flight, it can get scary. It will be even more scary for young kids who would get totally worried when this happens. And so, there is an actual flight where the oxygen masks dropped throughout the cabin, but the pilots thought nothing about it, and continued on the flight.

NEW DELHI: Every time you board an aircraft, you hear the standard pre-takeoff announcement of overhead oxygen masks falling in case of fall in cabin pressure. Most passengers feel this will never happen and don’t pay attention to it, but a recent Air India flight from Delhi to Mumbai flew all the way with the masks hanging over the heads of passengers.

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What do you call a politician who promptly declares her income and files tax ? Normally you would claim that such a politician is very honest and a credit to society, very different from other politicians. And what happens when you find out that the politician has no income source to justify such huge incomes (over Rs. 50 crores), and the only source is that ‘this is a donation from the loving masses’. It is notable that these are the loving masses who are mostly poor, who could not care less about donating to improve society, but who donate for increasing the wealth of a politician. And when the Tax tribunal takes up the case, it actually says that the love and respect for the politician is great, it believes her and stops the case.
Well, this is India. Where a normal salaried individual has to worry about sources of income, about how to conceal some amount of money made from under the table or from the buying or selling of stocks and property, and a politician is able to brazenly claim massive amounts as donations and legalize them. And the Central Government (a proper shame they, the way that they condone all illegal activities) looks the other way and does not even think about the kind of example and precedent that they are letting set. No wonder the Congress is sinking lower and lower in terms of middle class approval. Read this article in the Times of India, and you will find out more:

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We are in an age of globalization, with Indians traveling all over the world. The Indian Government routinely takes it up when they see any country trying to put restrictions on Indian citizens working over there (as an example, witness the (though so far unsuccessful) attempts of the Government to get a reversal of the new flawed work permit system for medicos in the UK). It is taken for granted that this is our country, and one can go and live anywhere in the country. There are some exceptions to this, such as the inability of outsiders to buy land in Kashmir, Himachal, etc; but these were special exceptions to prevent these small places from getting swamped by outsiders and retain their character.
To argue a similar thing for a leading metro of the country, on the other hand, is incredible. What Raj Thackeray is doing is almost equivalent to sedition, when he argues that outsiders essentially have no place in Mumbai. Mumbai is one of the most cosmopolitan cities in India, a place that is sought to be converted by the Government into a leading financial center of Asia. Arguing that outsiders are not welcome, and provoking attacks on them is not just criminal, but is going against the whole oneness of the country, and is equivalent to sedition. Mumbai has developed, and continues to develop, because of the movement of talent and people to that city.

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For some time now, there has been a concerted push to get into the mid-day meal scheme for school children. The introduction of the mid-day cooked meal for school children has been a major factor in the increase of school attendance, especially in rural areas. Pushed and prodded by the courts and by large sections of educators, the Ministry of Education run scheme provides funds for meals in 9.5 lakh schools across the country. Overall, the scheme has been a great success in its stated objective of encouraging parents to send their children to school. Schools provide cooked meals to children as per the local diet, and this also enthuses children to attend.
However, every silver lining has a dark cloud behind it, and in this case, the money involved was too great to resist. And hence there was a concerted push by manufacturers of biscuits and pre-cooked meals to get into the scheme; what better way than to try and point out positives of not using cooked meals. There are logistical issues with the whole cooking process, there is scope for corruption in terms of the process of sourcing of material for the cooked meals being decentralized, and so on. Further, pre-cooked meals and biscuits would allow the exact concentration of nutrients to be served to children. Seem very convincing points, and all of these were actually enumerated in an article in a weekly that I read some time back.

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In an important judgment, the Supreme Court of India has ratified the order of the National Consumer Commission that had awarded an overall sum of Rs. 38.04 lakhs (including interest) compensation against the Airports Authority of India for dereliction leading to the death of a child. In a horrific incident on December 13, 1999, a family arriving at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport saw their 7 year old daughter getting sucked into the gap at the end of the escalator and getting crushed to death. It was an incident that sparked a lot of outrage, more so, because this was an incident that could have been avoided.

The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld an order of the national consumer commission awarding Rs 38.04 lakh compensation to the mother of a seven-year-old girl who died after she was sucked into an escalator at Delhi’s international airport in December 1999. The order marked a stinging rebuke to the Airports Authority of India which, despite strong evidence pointing to its callousness in not maintaining the escalator, had sought to dispute the compensation granted to Geeta Jethani.
While awarding the compensation, the commission had criticized the cussed attitude of AAI in questioning the compensation for a death which clearly resulted from its apathy, saying the case pointed to the extent “we have developed the tendency to deny the obvious, in litigation”. “Except admitting the trapping of a young child in the escalator, the AAI has tried to dispute its liability and deficiency in service. We do not know when we will change our jurisprudence which encourages such attitude of denials and protracts litigation and increases burden on adjudicating forums/courts,” Justice M B Shah, chairman of the commission, had said in his verdict.

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The mixture of societal norms versus modern age greed makes for a potential minefield of customs. Given the prevalence of dowry in India, it is left for the courts to sort their way through this minefield. What makes the situation more complex is the prevalence of dowry as an abhorrent concept that can (and many times does) lead to harassment of the bride of the family, both verbally and physically as well as the increasing trend to use the harsh anti-dowry laws to threaten and get back at the husband’s family. Things are never simple. The classic definition of dowry is when money or equivalent is demanded from the bride and her family for the marriage or after. But what about the case when the husband’s family wants the bride’s family to give some gifts on the occasion of the birth of a child. If demanded, then it is abhorrent; but is it really dowry. It is part of the same get-money claim, but is not dowry. And that is what the Supreme Court has ruled:

The Supreme Court has ruled that demand for money and presents from parents of a married girl at the time of birth of her child or for other ceremonies, as is prevalent in society, may be deprecable but cannot be categorised as dowry to make it a punishable offence.
This means, if a daughter-in-law is being harassed for customary gifts by parents-in-law, then they could be booked under ordinary penal provisions but not under the tough anti-dowry laws providing stringent punishments.

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