January 8, 2009
Strikes by truckers, lawyers and oil PSUs have brought the city to a standstill
Six million trucks went off roads across the country on January 5, triggering fears of shortfall of essential items. The government has already threatened to invoke the Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA), if needed. The truckers are seeking decrease in diesel prices and heavy road taxes imposed by the government.
“There is no visible impact on prices of fruits and vegetable so far. The increase or decrease in prices is very marginal. But I can’t say the same thing will continue tomorrow,” Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) Azadpur secretary, Madhu Garg said. The truckers have threatened to stop the supply of vegetables and milk – the supply of which until the third of strike on Wednesday remained unaffected — from Thursday.
Meanwhile, work in all five district courts suffered on Wednesday as lawyers went on a strike demanding a repeal of the amendment to the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC).
The amendment provides the police the freedom to arrest or not arrest a person in offences punishable by a seven-year jail term.
Though the lawyers struck work, there is a section of them, which is backing the amendment. The supporters say it will ultimately help the public not be afraid of an arrest. The amendment also puts the onus on the police as they will have to justify an arrest in a court.
D.B. Goswami, a lawyer in the Supreme Court, said, “Laws are made to protect the people and not for a particular section of society. The amendment is beneficial for the people. Until now, people were afraid to get a police complaint lodged as the police never gave an opportunity to the accused. And if a person is put behind bars without an investigation, the police will now be forced to justify the arrest.”
The agitating lawyers, on the other hand, said the amendment will give the police undue powers, which will be misused. Giving the cops the discretion will spread corruption.
They said the fear of arrest was one of the major differences between a civil and criminal case. An arrest in criminal case was a deterrent and if it is left to the police, it will only spend corruption.
The decision to strike work at the Patiala House, Tis Hazari, Karkardooma, Rohini and Dwarka courts was taken on Tuesday at a meeting of the Co-ordination Committee, All Bar Associations of Delhi. All bar associations in the NCR will meet on Thursday to decide the course of action.
And this is not all. Defying the high court orders, oil PSU executives on Wednesday stopped work forcing stoppage of natural gas supplies to industries on the nation’s main trunk pipeline but aviation services and fuel supplies continued to be normal.
“The strike is total in all oil PSUs except Hindustan Petroleum. The strike began at 6 am,” Oil Sector Officers Association (OSOA) President Amit Kumar said here.
Officers of Oil and Natural Gas Corp stopped natural gas supplies from the country’s largest field in Mumbai offshore, forcing a shutdown of the Hazira-Vijaipur-Jagdishpur pipeline.
GAIL is maintaining supplies to priority sector from the volumes already available in the pipeline. ONGC also stopped most of the gas supplies from privately operated fields as the fuel from these passes through its processing units and pipelines. The strike was most visible in ONGC, while it has no impact in HPCL. Indian Oil Corp, the nation’s largest refiner, was maintaining aviation services but operations at four of its refineries were impacted.
Do you think strikes like these prove any point or are they just a ploy not to work?
January 8, 2009
While the whole country is demanding the harshest punishment possible for the 10 accused in the gang-rape of an MBA student in Noida, the family members of the accused and village elders say if the boys are guilty, they themselves will shoot each one of them. Till Wednesday night, the police had arrested six boys. Four are absconding.
“If there is any truth in the accusations, we will shoot each one of them,” says Bharat Yadav, a village elder. Till the boys are proved guilty, the entire village is standing behind all ten. The villagers including the parents of the accused are still not willing to believe that their sons could commit such a heinous crime. And so sure are they of their wayward sons’ innocence that they are willing to bite the bullet for them.
The shock and disbelief that descended on the village with the swooping Noida cops on Tuesday morning has still not settled down. Giani, the father of Sanjay, one of the accused boys, shooed us away when we tried to talk to him. On seeing us, another man accompanying him immediately took off in a Swift. We thought he was going to gather a crowd, but were relieved to find him returning with the village elders and a former village head, Bharat Yadav.
“We have seen these boys since they were babies. It is not possible that they could have done something like this,” says everyone. But they admit that there was a fight with the boy. “Our boys were on their way to the village and spotted the car near Sector 123 at Pushta Pathala Khanjarpur. They say that the couple was in an objectionable position and they objected to this. A brawl ensued. Our boys may have hit the boy, but they could not have raped the girl,” says Bharat Yadav. He will find it difficult to argue with forensic evidence.
“Everyone wants to know the truth. More than 250 cops came on Tuesday and took away the boys without any explanation. No one knew what was happening. Where were the boys being taken or why? Even after that when we tried to meet them we were not allowed. We went to the police station where the boys were kept but they were not allowed to meet their son. Even the parents want the truth to be out. If their sons have done something wrong they should be punished but for that a proper procedure should be followed and a balanced approach is necessary which the police are not ready to do,” said one of the parents.
They, however, have no explanation for the fact that one of the accused boys has made a statement before television cameras not only confessing to his crime but also giving the entire list of names of the nine others involved.
Do you think society as a whole can play a constructive role in helping the girl get justice and set a precedent?
January 7, 2009
Attending to the ill and the infirm seems to have taken a backseat in Aiims, with the premier medical institute’s ongoing beautification drive hogging administrative focus. As Aiims gets a facelift, nobody cares to attend to patients who have been waiting at the turnstile for days and weeks, and some even for months.
Ahead of Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss’ visit to the hospital, the security cover at Aiims is being improved as patient care slips down the list of priorities.
A new security agency has been contracted to provide guards with crisp, new uniform to man the premises. Campus roads that don’t need repairs are being spruced up.
Senior faculty members claim the facelift is owing to the minister’s visit to the 36th convocation scheduled to be held on Wednesday. Incidentally, the institute’s faculty is boycotting the event.
Denying that the cosmetic touches were being put just to impress Ramadoss, Aiims Deputy Director of Administration Shailesh Yadav says, “The plan to repair the roads was in the offing since the start of the monsoon. We were not able to find a good contractor earlier but now we have one from the National Highways Authority of India. It is just a coincidence that things are taking shape now.”
Agreeing, Aiims spokesperson, Dr Y.K. Gupta, says that the process for repairing the roads had started at least six months ago.
But the patients who line up outside Aiims wards waiting for their turn are being neglected as usual, some doctors say. “They continue to shiver and huddle in the cold,” a senior faculty member says.
Should hospital administration be blamed for causing inconvenience to patients?
January 7, 2009
Getting learner’s licence is no more a cumbersome process. Under the on-going Road Safety Week initiative, the southwest district transport authority has come up with online tests to make the process of getting learner’s licence easily.
Standing in long queues to appear for the test and waiting for ages to get a learner’s licence will be a thing of the past soon. “The process is called Automated Learner’s Licence. We have a separate unit called Learner License Unit. Now we don’t conduct tests on papers. The earlier process wasn’t fair and transparent. It had a lot of loopholes. Even the touts would not be able to extract money under the new process. There is a set of 20 questions with multiple choices. Candidates will be given 20 minutes to answer all the questions,” Anil Kumar Chhikara, a Motor Licensing officer, said.
The officer said that now more women candidates have started coming to appear for the test. “It has become so easy that people themselves prefer to come instead of sending the touts,” Chikara said.
The software has been prepared in such a way so that each question paper has a different set of questions. A batch of seven to eight people can appear for the test at the same time. “The manual process was time consuming,” he said.
Not only this, the biometric system saves the information of the candidates which helps save time. The system captures the face of the candidate, fingerprints and digital signature. One has to pay the fees at the first counter, move to the second counter which has the biometric system and then appear for the test. If a candidate fails the test, another chance id provided without extra fees.
Do you think the online process will prevent touts from getting false licences made?
January 7, 2009
10 men take turns to rape MBA student inside car in Noida. Five arrested, others absconding …
Dad tells the story of how his son, Amit, was assaulted and his friend raped
It was around 9 pm on Monday. I had been worried sick about my son. He is a responsible boy and generally returns from his MBA classes around 7 pm. If he is going to be late, he always informs us. But on Monday he was late and was not even answering his cell phone.
I had called up all his friends and was wondering what to do next when he walked into my office with a girl. Both appeared to have been injured.
My first thought was maybe he has been in an accident. But when he told me what had happened, I was shocked and enraged.
The girl is our neighbour and also goes to the same B-school as my son. Since there are a number of kids the same age in our colony who go to Noida to study, they all use a car pool. On Monday, the girl had brought her Wagon R and my son had left with her.
After the classes ended, they went to the Great India Place in Sector 18 to shop and around 5 pm, they decided to return. They had driven for about half-a-kilometre when they noticed two motorcycles following them. There were four men on the bikes.
All of a sudden, these men surrounded the car and forced my son to stop. Before he could realise what was happening, they had hit him with a brick, pushed him to the passenger’s seat and got behind the wheel. The others had come towards the girl’s side and forced her into the backseat before getting in with her. While one of the boys was driving, the other two in the back seat began assaulting her. They also kept hitting my son. The fourth man kept pace with the car on his bike. They left the second bike at the spot.
For about an hour, they kept driving around, perhaps looking for a dark and lonely spot. As the sun set and it became darker, they became bolder. They took turns raping the girl in the moving car.
What is even more horrifying is that they even called up some other friends and asked them to join in. By the time the girl’s ordeal ended, she had been assaulted by 10 men.
They drove the car to a secluded dark and deserted place in Sector-71, where about 10 persons raped the girl one by one.
After raping the girl, all ten boys abandoned them in a deserted place. But before they could escape, my son managed to note the number of one of the bikes. But he could not call me or anyone else for help because before escaping, the rapists snatched his mobile phone, wrist watch and wallet.
I called the girl’s family members to my office and we went to the police station in Noida’s Sector-39 and reported the incident.
The Noida police immediately swung into action and with the help of the motorbike number my son gave them, they raided several premises of the accused. By the end of the day, all the accused persons had been apprehended.
My son has a fractured elbow apart from several other injuries. He is in hospital where the doctors have advised bed-rest. He is having severe pain in the abdomen. The girl’s condition is worse. She is also in hospital.
(As told to Pradip R. Sagar)
Should gangrape be punished with a life sentence or death?
January 7, 2009
Everybody — be it a driver or a pedestrian — in the city must have cursed the autorickshaw drivers at least once for their total lack of traffic sense and their rudeness.
Those who have had to take autos for commuting, know first-hand about their automatic refusal go by the meter or plain rude refusal.
But, there still might be hope. The Delhi Traffic Police have to teach them a lesson. Not by punishing. The traffic police will provide “classroom” lessons on good behaviour and traffic sense into the autorickshaw drivers.
Senior traffic police officers said the main aim of this exercise is to instill better behaviour. The decision came in view of the upcoming Commonwealth Games, so that the auto drivers behave well with foreigners as well as compatriots. The other purpose is to teach them about road safety.
Road Safety cell of Delhi Traffic Police has begun weekly lectures on good behaviour and road safety in different parts of the city. The classes will be taken every Saturday at different locations. To ensure participation of maximum drivers, Traffic Police is getting help from various associations and an NGO, which works for the drivers’ welfare.
The good news is that “it seems they are paying attention to the classes as many of them told us they never thought on these lines,” Ramesh Kaushik, ACP (Road Safety Cell) Delhi Traffic Police, said.
Do you think the traffic cops would succeed in their drive?
January 5, 2009
Here’s you chance to speak your heart out to the AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi. You can call him, text him and that too direct! Seems impossible? It isn’t.
The youth icon is working on a call centre idea so that he can be accessible to each and every youth of the country without any hitch or hindrance. The novel idea will be executed soon and is being implemented by a Bangalore-based friend of Rahul.
According to party sources, Rahul was looking out for a way to be in touch with the youth of the country directly. He expressed this desire to organisations like Youth Congress and NSUI and said he would like to reach those who want to do constructive work or want to register their grievances directly. He also said that there should not be any kind of blockade or hindrance in accessing him under the scheme.
The idea finally starting taking shape after Rahul’s friend suggested setting-up call-centres to get real feedback from the youth. Rahul was also suggested to give-out a number so that people could directly register their grievances to him.
Although all calls may not be attended by Rahul himself, the crux of the message or the call will directly be observed by him.
Under the system not even a single call or SMS will go unnoticed and each text sent to him will appear on a screen directly accessible to Rahul. For this, the Congress and the Youth Congress is planning to set-up call-centres in all major cities.
According to sources, the proposed system will start working before the General elections. “The system ensures transparency and it will also end the myth that top leadership is not accessible to the common people,” a senior leader associated with Rahul said.
Do you think the public should get numbers of all politicians so as to reach them directly?
January 5, 2009
There is madness in terror. And a method. Railway stations, bus stops, shopping markets, luxury hotels — all have been targeted. One could assume the bigots may have run out of targets to hit. Not quite. The IT and BPO companies, with their international fame and domestic glory, seem to be the next sitting ducks.
What’s even more worrisome is the fact that the industry may already have been infected by a trojan. Cool guys with cool accents, with headphones on their head and programming on their minds, waiting for the right time, the right target.
In the absence of foolproof background checks and driven by an unquenchable thirst for manpower, the industry may well have allowed its security to be compromised. That IT majors like Infosys have asked the government to provide security at their facilities comes as no surprise. Security experts believe there are loopholes waiting to be exploited by decrepit mind(s).
Kunwar Vikram Singh, India’s best known detective and security expert, claims IT/BPO firms could well be the next terror target.
And he has reasons to back his claim. “It’s a known fact every BPO and IT firm should conduct background checks on every new employee. But how many of them actually do that? If you look at the meagre amount they spend on background checks, it’s appalling.
“Hordes of employees join and leave everyday in this industry. There seems to be no check on their credentials. Even though IT/BPO hubs have always been on the terror radar, firms are just not interested in spending money to have their employees verified. They want to cut corners, more so in these times of recession,” the 60-year-old says.
Last year at least three terrorists, including the kingpin of the September Delhi blasts, Abdus Subhan Qureshi alias Tauqeer, were found to have worked for Indian IT majors, drawing huge salaries.
On Sunday, the Karnataka Police tightened security around major software firms following a threatening email that originated in USA.
The email warned the firms that blocking a Youtube channel will not deter terrorists from targeting major software firms.
Preliminary investigations show this email is not being taken lightly. Companies that received potential terror attacks alerts are Wipro, Infosys, Accenture, Capgemini, and Cranes Software.
“The background checks by most of the outsourcing firms is an eyewash. They should be willing to spend more. They hardly give Rs 500 to an agency to check the educational and professional qualifications for each employee. But what about their psycho-profiling, criminal background check, habits and potential risks? As these services come at a cost, the firms are not willing to verify through proper channels,” another security expert says.
“Also, we Indians have a habit of providing a good report about their employees. The firms think why should a future be spoiled by giving a bad report to a prospective employer. This practice should be stopped,” he says.
Are IT-BPO workstations acting as silicon shelters or are they the next blast target?
What can be done to avert another big tragedy?
