Dr.Jayaprakash Narayan on electoral reforms!

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Shashi Tharoor - Run Out!

Shashi Tharoor's resignation from the Council of Ministers closes an innings in Indian politics. Tharoor was a poor batsman. His performance fell short of his promise. His stay in a 5 star hotel in Delhi, albeit with own funds to the tune of Rs.50 lakhs, wasn't ideal for a Minister who claims tall to be the change he wants in the world. His tweets attracted attention and controversy but they didn't end to his advantage.

The proverbial last straw was the latest round of auctions for IPL Cricket teams.

Tharoor shouted from rooftops of his role in binging IPL cricket to Kerala and a team for his home state. He was proud of his association with the Kochi team as 'Mentor' and all was well. The beans started spilling when Lalit Modi, the IPL Commissioner, revealed in a tweet that a certain Sunanda Pushkar held sweat equity worth Rs.70 crores in the team Tharoor happened to be mentoring.

All hell broke loose in media and Parliament while Tharoor failed to convincingly explain his association with the Kochi team as 'Mentor', his association with Sunanda Pushkar as fiancee and sweat equity being awarded to her. Even at the time of his resignation, many things remain a mystery.

Were Tharoor more transparent, this ignoble exit could have been averted. That he couldn't, confirms suspicions, there is more than meets the eye!

Free Anand Jon!

'Out of sight,Out of mind', the adage pierced my senses last evening when a call came from Shashi Abraham, mother of Anand Jon. In the last many months, attending to the routine, unimportant bsuiness of life, Anand Jon receded from my consiousness and I felt a prick of conscience talking to his mother. I was one of the early birds to express my solidarity with Anand Jon for it was clear he was on trial for charges that were false and trumped up. I hoped the trial court would see this and declare him 'not guilty'. Unfortunately, it was not to be. Anand's trial got vitiated by many external factors and ended in his being sentenced to 59 years in jail. Not having read the judgment of the trial court, I won't comment on it. Judicial veridcts, in civil society, are sacrosanct and our earnest belief is that they are pronounced by the Judge in a fair and independent manner. However, even without reading the judgement, from familiarity with the facts of the case and the events connected with it, I am sure, the verdict indicting Anand Jon leaves a lot of questions unanswered and issues unexplained. Anand was a victim of racial prejudice and of his own professional success, to say the least. The judgement does not succeed in allaying these suspicions which is why the movement to free Anand Jon remains vibrant, growing and active. The people associated with it are fair and honourable citizens who don't want to be identified as supporting a sex offender or criminal. That they risk their reputation in continuting to lend support to Anand is a testament to their faith in in his innocence and protest at a free and fair trial being denied to him. I hope the Judiciary and the Government of the United States of America will heed demands arising from civil society the world over and ensure justice to Anand Jon. The Indian Government should sincerely do whatever it can in this matter.

Micro-level Conflicts

Scanning Page 11 of New Indian Express dated Jan 11th, Monday, brought these news items to my notice:

a)Strained relations between Malays and ethnic Chinese and Indians that the country is being Islamised resulted in firebombs being thrown at many Christian churches. Authorities described these as pranks and not organized attacks for they caused only minimal damage.

b)The town of Rosarno in Southern Calabria region of Italy witnessed clashes between immigrant labourers from Sub-Saharan Africa and locals. The immigrants, mostly fruit pickers, were protesting about the appalling living conditions and low wages, while the locals wanted them thrown out of the country.

c)Analyzing data of survey conducted in Britain, David Voas, Prof of Population Studies, Manchester University pointed out that majority believed the multi-cultural experiment had failed, there was increasing opposition to Islam than to any other religion and those surveyed were even willing to limit the freedom of speech to contain religious extremism.

These news items makes me aware that many micro-level conflicts are happening around the world.They centre around geographically small areas and small populations. Unfortunately, they don’t receive the notice they deserve. Our entire attention is captured by major conflicts like Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and so on. Is it a conspiracy of big media and big governments to entrench themselves?. Ultimately, our maturity in tackling and resolving micro-level conflicts will go to determine how safe the world will be for future generations.