Deepak Misra

35 years to conclude a trial

2020-07-25T19:54:00.000+05:30

I was in college in 1985 when the news of Man Singh had hit the newspapers.

Newspapers were largely the source of information and which I avidly followed.

Though his name sounds like a dacoit he was a former royal of the former state of Bharatpur who had won every election he had stood for and was still treated as royalty by his erstwhile subjects. In the interests of brevity I am just jumping to the end skipping the details. He was shot down quite cold bloodily by the Rajasthan police over a dispute and it was attempted to pass of his case as encounter. His popularity can by gauged by the fact that there was a complete shutdown of the area and the chief minister was forced to resign. (Yes such things used to happen).

The news had some morbid fascination for me which is why the incident remains in my mind.

I was recollecting the incident a few weeks back but could not find any reference since I had forgotten his name and the state.

A few days back I read in the paper that the trial court finally found 11 policemen guilty of murder and were all sentenced to life imprisonment. Some of the accused had already died. So it took 35 years to complete a trial. Assuming the culprits were in the age group of 25-35 they would now be 60 to 70 years old !!!. This trial was not allowed to go to cold storage on account for the persistence of the victims family else it might have languished in courts for longer.

Now there are still 2 levels of appeals possible for the convicts which could take anything upto 10 years more by which all involved would have met their maker the final dispenser of justice.

So now we can understand the oft repeated phrase “The law will take its own course”

#law-will-take-its-own-course

Dear Arnab

2018-09-16T19:17:00.003+05:30

Dear Arnab

This is a strange post in the series “Dear…”. You see it started with a letter to the leader of the Congress followed by one to their exalted lordships. Logically our respected Pradhan Mantri ji should have been next but my irritation when I happen to drop in on your channel is so large that I thought I would change the priority a little bit. I see this letter more as a social service rather than a forum to reduce my vent out as I will explain as we go on.

To give some context, From childhood I viewed journalism as a noble profession. Without intending to brag I must state that from my childhood people considered my general knowledge good. This GK had largely been built up by regular reading from beginning to end of the newspaper which happened to be the primary source of information in those days. Newspapers had journalists of high calibre and integrity and they were people what modern day MBAs would call “thought leaders”, a sadly extinct species nowadays.

Let me reiterate some of the “noble” principles of the profession.

Newspapers disseminated facts for their viewers and presented “news”
There was some separation between the editorial and business leanings
Opinion (not to be confused with facts) was largely presented on the editorial page
Parliamentary decorum was maintained. I might be a bit conservative on this point, but I do strongly feel that there is a certain dignity that journalism demands.
The most important principle was that a journalist considered himself as a pillar of and an integral structure of democracy . This carried a certain responsibility and becoming a TRP machine or a spokesperson of a political party was not an agenda.

Maybe my naivety and idealism is showing with this last statement.

With the advent of news channels things changed as they had to. The attention span of viewers reduced, the competition became intense and like the medical profession and education the business ran supreme and the primary mission of the journalist changed. The noble tenets of the profession was the casualty of these development.

So what are my grievances against you? Let me try to enumerate them in order:

You masquerade as a journalist. Refer to the first paragraph of this post to which I am sure you will be able to relate. A journalist has to be objective something which is absent among your various virtues. Now I have read somewhere that you are trying to redefine journalism but my feeling is you are trying to destroy and not redefine. The examples to substantiate my beliefs but will make this letter too long. So I look forward to discuss this further sometime somewhere in a neutral forum.
Our Indian society has some core values, chief among them being tolerance and co-existence. These values have stood us in good stead since eternity and while the world is all about change, what you preach is an assault on our values and if people take you seriously will take us on a dangerous path. You have an eye on TRP’s and journalism be damned. You and your cronies on panel have a one point agenda to preach hatred and try to make non issues into major issues.
During your schooling I am sure you would have been exposed and maybe even participated in debates. There are actually two types of debates, one where you “win” by presenting your points in a manner to awe the audience even if you don’t belief in them. The other are more discussion than debate where you listen with an open mind and try to convince the others of your viewpoints and are willing to listen and even change your position depending on the persuasiveness of your panellists with differing view points. The second one is largely fantasy on my part and does not exist but a responsible journal should really pursue this option. What I never had heard before being subject to your channel was where the moderator had an agenda and had a lethal weapon in the form of the microphone and the power to silence anyone he could not browbeat.
The very purpose of your program is not to inform nor report nor solve. It is all about appealing to the basic instincts. You and your cronies are modern day gladiators fighting your selected opponent gladiators by tying their hands in the form of shouting them down and lowering their volumes when they speak
I am sure with little effort you could find panellists who could play a constructive role in a debate and don’t have hard line positions. However this would be against your business interests so you specialize in finding hard liners and people who can easily be bashed.
Bad debating. You seem to have learnt all dirty tricks of the street fighting of debating. Let me elaborate on the most important one.

Ad-hominen (By far the worst)
Accusation by innuendo. (Refer to the title of this post, it might have been written by you)
Changing the subject on difficult questions addressed to you.
Asking your panellist to defend positions they never made
Making mountains out of molehills
Making mountains into molehills
No serious attempt at finding a solution to anything

I think you are a smart person and am sure you know the damage you are causing. You see there seems to be a certain portion of our populace who think you are a “patriotic journalist”. I think the journalist part is already covered and I will leave the subject of being patriotic for another day. It needs a whole article by itself.

Your Exalted Lordships

2018-05-06T09:19:00.001+05:30

Your Exalted Lordships,

This is but one letter in the series of “unsolicited advice” I am writing. I did start the series with a letter to the leader of the largest opposition party. You can read it at http://blog.deepakmisra.com/2016/12/dear-mr-gandhi.html . I don’t know if he did get around to reading it, but I do observe a certain maturity in him now and would like to think that my advice contributed to this change.

I thought that a letter to the head of the government would be the next one, but yours is an important institution and I am bumping up the priority of my letter.

It is with a bit of trepidation that I write this letter. You see, the laws regarding contempt of court are a big vague and I am not sure as to how frankly I can talk without invoking the majesty of your wrath. My legal advisers are my family, one of whom is an advocate with a rich experience of 6 months. The consensus like many of your judgments were split and the majority decision was “Why to get into this?". However I decided to persevere.

I did a cursory reading before starting this letter and if I see http://www.legalserviceindia.com/article/l255-Contempt-of-Court.html along with other reading I might be on the right side of the law. If by chance I don’t, an unqualified apology from me right away. My intent is not to lower the dignity of the court , scandalize it or obstruct the delivery of justice , but view my advice more of what would be called constructive criticism. As a citizen of the “world’s largest democracy” my unease of the developments happening around our democratic institutions have been increasing day by day in an increasing order of magnitude.

Most articles of this nature are written as “articles” addressing the population at large and referring to everyone in third person, but I find this a bit constraining and think that writing as if addressing you directly makes my points a bit direct.

Now I don’t know a good place to start.

Maybe looking at a photo of Mr. B R Ambedkar might be a good starting point since his image adorns the walls of every institution and probably is framed behind your desks.

(source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/Dr._B.R._AMBEDKAR_OIL_PAINTING.jpg)

This great Indian was the chief architect behind the formation of our republic’s guiding principles in the form of a constitution. For agnostics like me, this document replaces a holy book.

One of the guiding principles of this “holy book” was the defining of organs of the republic. There is some scope for discussion on which is supreme, the people or the constitution. I think it is safe to say that the will of the people is supreme provided it does not contradict the core values of what we as a nation decided so many decades back. Our constitutional creators were great people and in my opinion reasonably ahead of their time. I do wish that they had framed their output in somewhat simpler language which would enable laymen such as myself to understand the broader and subtle nuances of the law.

Let us take a quick look at what the framers of the constitution had envisaged as a main role of judicial organ which is one of the pillars of our democracy. I am sure that Dr. Ambedkar, as he spent late nights and numerous meetings, had never thought that the highest court of the land and final dispenser of justice would be spending time among other things on:

- How cricket should be administered in India.

- How many injections TB patients need to take.

- What should be the engine size of vehicles in one specific city.

- Whether jokes against a certain community should be banned. I can just imagine the dignified face of Dr Ambedkar were he alive and listening to this case.

If I continue in this vein, I would be spending a substantial amount of my time and yours if you happen to read this letter. This would dilute the overall focus of what I am trying to say , so let’s leave it at that.

I do think that the founding fathers had envisaged that a constitutional court and high courts would spend their time adjudicating on matters relating to the constitution and ensuring that the fundamental rights of citizens remain, as per their definition, fundamental. There has been an increasing attack on one of the fundamental rights, the freedom of expression. The attack has unfortunately been originating from all directions including your courts. As per my layman’s understanding, a judge steps in when there is a dispute and adjudges this dispute bases the reasoning on existing laws. I don’t think the framers of the constitution had envisaged a situation where the judiciary would step into deciding on laws, depending on what is good for the country, getting into policy and reforming the country.

While I do appreciate your noble intent of reforming the country, a good place to start is always at home. What are the matters closer to your home?

Let us face it that the delivery of justice in this country has miserably failed. I looked at some old data and find that 66% of the prisoners in the countries jails are undertrials out of which more than 40% remain in jail for 6 month before getting bail. I thought that is no authoritative substantive data to support my assertion that most of these people would be illiterate and won’t know how to spell constitution. However I see https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Heres-proof-that-poor-get-gallows-rich-mostly-escape/articleshow/48151696.cms and if the data is assume to be accurate.

To quote the article:

A first of its kind study, which has analyzed data from interviews with 373 death row convicts over a 15-year period, has found three-fourths of those given the death penalty belonged to backward classes, religious minorities and 75% were from economically weaker sections.

The reason why the poor, Dalits and those from the backward castes get a rougher treatment from our courts is more often than not their inability to find a competent lawyer to contest their conviction. As many as 93.5% of those sentenced to death for terror offences are Dalits or religious minorities.

The other point is the delayed justice system.

Let us take 2 extreme cases:

* Rudal Shah, arrested in 1953, remained in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur jail for 30 years despite being acquitted in 1968.

* Boka Thakur, arrested at age 16, was jailed and detained without trial for 36 years in Bihar’s Madhubani jail.

These maybe isolated cases , but are in my opinion an indicator of the systematic rot that remains in our countries justice system. I do vividly remember the L N Mishra case since I had started the daily reading of newspapers around the time of his assassination.

http://www.rediff.com/news/report/seven-things-you-should-know-about-the-40-year-long-l-n-mishra-case/20141208.htm informs me that 4 people were convicted of his murder 40 years after the assassination. One of the accused who is now 67 years old had 31 of his 37 witnesses die during the trial. A more religious person than me would say that the almighty is the final dispenser of justice but then, the nation’s founders wisely decided to keep the almighty out of the justice system.

Now a country’s progress to a large extent can be measured by the value it puts on its values and it is envisaged that the highest court in the country is the final succor for the ordinary citizen. His rights are protected by the constitution which again is the book which you swore your allegiance to ,when you took your oath of office. The right to speedy justice is a very important right explicit or implicit. The supreme web site informs me that the pending cases in the court as on -1-Nov-2017 was 55259. With this backlog, do you really think deciding on how cricket is to be governed in India is a priority?

http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/24-high-courts-short-of-43-65-judges-have-40-54-lakh-pending-cases/story-rY3IH9e760SfheEzKI38JJ.html informs that there are approx.. 54 Lakh pending before various high courts. While is it is easy to blame the shortage of judges as the primary reason , I would strongly differ with the proponents of this assertion. Let me humbly ask, with these statistics, does it really seem correct for courts to have summer, winter, Diwali vacations? Just think of the state of the nation if any other organ had these type of vacations.

Let us switch tracks a bit and come to my duties as a citizen of this country. As a dutiful citizen I try my best to go and vote every election. For better or worse , by this process we have someone who represents the will of a majority of the people and hopefully will do his best to ensure that this will get translated into some action within the framework by which he was elected. For example, if he feels that liquor is against the interests of the people he will work to see that availability of liquor is restricted. He has a certain accountability for his actions since he knows that the next election is the acid test whether he was faithful to his constituent or not. Okay I admit that I have gone into a very idealistic mode and real life is far removed from this idealistic scenario that I painted. What I am thinking about belongs in a text book and I could be justifiably accused of hallucinatory tendencies with this essay, but let us assume that we are in a text book mode.

Your institution has been making gradual inroads into areas outside your jurisdiction and this is reaching an alarming state. You see, you are getting into areas your don’t have expertize on nor do you have the authority or accountability to see your actions being actually implemented. The vast long term damage your actions are causing cannot be understated.

All this writing maybe a bit heavy to assimilate, so let me stop at this point and plan on a part 2.

The National Anthem issue resurfaces

2017-10-28T20:20:00.000+05:30

I had pondered over this subject last year and reading the old post http://blog.deepakmisra.com/2016/12/rambling-thoughts-on-playing-of.html will help to get the context of this post better.

Almost all people screaming vociferously on this issue are missing what in corporate jargon we call the big picture. There are a couple of points to take into consideration before discussing the act of respecting the national anthem, if one should stand or sit when the national anthem is being played.

Let us separate this discussion into 3 parts

1) The appropriateness of a court asking theatres to play the national anthem

- The moot point is whether courts can pass arbitrary and possibly illegal orders and usurp the job of the executive. It is absolutely shameful that the government and the parliamentarians are happy with the courts taking over their job. Passing laws is parliament’s job. It is not the job of an unelected body. However it benefits the leaders when they can have unpopular decisions taken by someone else. Why do we need parliament at all if courts have assumed the role of law making? My earlier blog mentions how the whole controversy started and why the court order is improper. So to sum it up, this controversy has started from an improper if not incorrect order.

- Luckily the Supreme Court seems to have realized that they have bitten off a bit more than they can chew and are trying to deflect the whole controversy by pushing it to the government. A correct approach would have been to admit that they, the court were wrong and rescind their order. This turnaround by the lordships is bizarre particularly since one of the judges seems to be attacking his own order.

- The puzzling part is why only cinema ? Why not before a court session starts ? Why not before a flight takes off? Why not before offices, parliament …. Incidentally someone has asked for the anthem to be played before court starts and was told by the court “not to take things too far”.

2) Patriotism and the national anthem

- Patriotism cannot cannot be forced. I think by and large people are patriotic and the national anthem has been imbibed into us from early childhood. Hard boiled egg as I am, the anthem brings a lump to my throat when I hear it on republic day. The same sentiment does not repeat when I hear the anthem in a cinema hall just before a movie starts. I do resent anything pushed down on me and while I will respect the anthem by standing up when played, the resentment of this forced patriotism will continue. The national anthem is a solemn “work” and in order to preserve the solemnness , we should restrict the frequency with which it is played and more important the forum in which it is played. The reason why it was stopped being played in cinemas a few decades back was the disrespect shown when people rushed out of the theatres when it started playing.

3) Standing up when the anthem is being played

- Now let us discuss the point on whether it is unpatriotic for someone not to stand when the anthem is being played. From my point of view, it is a sign of disrespect to the country not standing when it is being played. There might be a couple of reasons why someone does not stand up for the anthem

a) He might have some genuine reason. This is a no brainer and does not need discussion.

b) He might oppose imposition of something on him and is not gripped with the same fervour that some people have. Citizens of this country do have their rights and the absolute right to exercise them. If there is no law currently that mandates someone to stand during playing of the anthem, we just have to respect the person’s right not to stand much as we disagree with it. If there is very strong public desire the government should make a law. Such a law would have to pass the test of not being against a fundamental right of expression and more learned minds than mine can comment on this.

c) He might just not identify himself as a citizen of the country and might be an unpatriotic Indian. Such incidents do need to be condemned.

I gathered from some “debates” on TV that certain liberals, fiberals, pseudo secularists, commies are asking people not to stand when the anthem is played but could not encounter the identities of such people using cursory google search. Anyway if some one is preaching such ideologies it needs to be condemned. The best way to deal with someone trying to start a controversy is to ignore him. You defeat his purpose in a simple way.

What is extremely dangerous is the polarization being created by politicians and worse certain news channels by trying to stoke up a controversy. The distinction between cinema and news is slowly blurring and it would be most appropriate to play the national anthem before the news. As an afterthought, I would suggest to the right wing television channels to play the national anthem before office starts.

Dear Mr. Gandhi

2016-12-24T21:50:00.003+05:30

Dear Mr. Gandhi,

Given your recent antics, history would not judge me harshly if I addressed you as Rahul-baba, but since this is a serious letter let us keep the communication formal. In spite of this aforementioned formality let me jest by clarifying upfront that I don’t anticipate any seismic tremors from my communication.

I am quite sure you would not read my letter to you anytime, but I just do hope you would somehow chance upon it.

Let me start by introducing myself. My name is not important, but what is important is that I was a Congress voter on the few times I used to bother to vote. The reasons for this was not my love for the party or my admiration in the ideology. Face it that most political parties in India including yours don’t have any recognizable ideology. My reasons for voting Congress was what was called in your fathers time TINA (There is no alternative). There was really no credible alternative for a long time. Disastrous experiments by Successive non Congress governments just reinforced this belief leading me on the path of “The Congress was the least evil of all the known devils”.

Being what many people would call a pseudo secularist, I watched with great unease the rise of the BJP who worried me with their thought process. I was always hoping that the Congress would somehow counter this threat and keep the nation safe from these right wingers. My support was solidly with your spokespersons in the Arnab days running up to the elections hollow as their debating might have been.

However as the last days of the UPA approached, I watched with amazement at the kind of scams that kept coming up. We had a government which seemed to be completely lost themselves and also lost the ability to govern. Now politics is known to be dirty and let us not fool ourselves that any party in India is “not corrupt”. However the nature and quantum of scams that seemed to be coming in and kept weakening my resolve and I was left at some stage wondering if it is better to have some one who could govern the country irrespective of their position viz a viz their orientation to the center, left off or right off.

I finally cast my lot with the BJP in the last elections and I have not regretted it since. Let me be clear at this point I don’t support in any way the ideology of this party’s parent organization. However I have seen no evidence till now of the fascism from the BJP that many of us were worried about. To digress at this point, many people who use the word fascist don’t know the meaning of this phrase.

As far as Prime minster Modi is concerned, he has my solid vote behind him based on his actions after taking over leadership of this country.

I am just a social commentator and not a writer, journalist or general pundit and don’t know how one quantitatively measures a prime minister.

However from a subjective point of view, he has shown himself to be a statesman and has put the country at the top of his mind. He has developed a vision for this country and managed to articulate much of it. India has got a leader the people can look upon. What is clearly visible is a gradual betterment of quality of governance and most important putting India on the world stage. I can just give one data point (which is not data in any form) which is the pride when I felt during a holiday in Cambodia when the auto driver in a remote place mentioned to me how India has become so strong in such a short time. Let us face it, there was a lot of cleaning up to do from the era of coalition politics of UPA II and I atleast am not expecting some grand immediate results. Strangely most of my fellow pseudo secularists seem to be very polarized and the majority seem to be against Prime minister Modi. This disturbs me since they seem to oppose the prime minister on principle and not on an issues base. I don’t see this changing in the near future but then pseudo secualrists don’t change election results.

To clarify, I am not a blind supporter of Prime Minister Modi and am opposed to some of his governments decisions and actions. I am also aware that many of his achievements had been started during the time of the UPA and it would be unfair to credit it all to the prime minister.

Now at this stage let me give you some unsolicited advice.

This advice is not from any altruistic motives but a selfish one since it impacts me. You see I am a strong believer in democracy and for a strong democracy we need a strong and responsible opposition.

In India the role of the opposition is to oppose the government whatever they do irrespective if this opposition is in the country’s interests or not. While such an approach might keep you in the limelight temporarily, the long term effect would be detrimental for the country for sure and quite likely for you. Face it, the electorate of today is not the same electorate who kept your family in power for so many decades. In the age of the internet ideas opinions and information flows at a very fast pace and it is difficult to fool all the people all the time.

As much as I support the prime minster, I do get uneasy at the thought of his party becoming another Congress. At the national level yours is the only party which can play the role of an opposition and if you play your cards right may even be back at the government in the medium term. To do this, you need to increase your maturity and reduce your “antics”. Face it, your attacks on PM Modi will not get you anywhere. He has managed to sell his vision to the people (whom I belong to) and all seem to be behind him. To shake this off , you need to:

1) Develop an ideology of your own. Being anti Modi is not an ideology. TINA has been demolished and replaced with TIAA.

2) Having a dynastic rule has the major problem that you tend to supress strong leaders. Most of your inner circle cannot face the people directly and have been elected from the safer havens of the Rajay Sabha. It is quite unbelievable to have a prime mister, home minister and finance minister none of whom could directly face the electorate. This is clearly a result of dynastic thinking. If a political party has to depend on one person as leader based on his lineage, it cannot have an ideology. Please do reflect on this. To build a strong party you need to have people who will one day challenge you. If you think that you can politically survive by a sycophantic circle with no direct power base, I have some stocks in gold mines and oil wells that I would like to offer you at a bargain of a lifetime.

3) Have patience. Your rout in the last elections is the result of your party’s actions and inactions and recovery will take some time. You cannot build a castle from ashes overnight but if you start now you might recover at some stage.

4) My request to you is to have a broader vision for the country. Disrupting parliament and continuous attacks on the government is not going to get you any “equity” as a MBA would say. An easy way out for you is to say that the “BJP” did the same when they were in opposition. That is not a line that a statesman would use and if you hope one day to achieve the exalted status of a statesman you better abandon this line. Playing the role of a responsible opposition and keeping the countries interests at heart viz viz pandering to vote banks might get you some short term gains at the cost of the long term ones. However thinking of the country as a whole might get you the longer term benefits even though the process is slow. Your actions right now are diametrically opposite to all that I am advising, but if you read my communication with an open mind I am sure there will be a convergence of thought.

Once again, India as with any democracy needs a strong opposition which does not have to be you. If you do not fill this place, someone else will. I would like this to be you assuming you do show me that you have the interests of the country at heart.

Feel free to ask me for any clarifications or further advise.

Yours Sincerely

Deepak Misra

Citizen

Republic of India

P.S. Next letter is to Prime Minster Modi which I might get around to once I recover from the effort of writing this one and I will keep you copied.

Rambling Thoughts on playing of the National Anthem

2016-12-03T20:56:00.004+05:30

The recent controversy about the national anthem got me bit interested in researching and "opiniating" on this a bit further. There has been sufficient media coverage on this but I learnt from my almost lawyer daughter the importance of reading a judgement and not going by 3^rd party reports.

So doing a google search I downloaded, printed and studied the judgement and here is my analysis and opinion.

The judgement can be accessed here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzXilfcxe7yuRkFrMUZSdmExY3M/view

An excellent summary is here https://indconlawphil.wordpress.com/2016/11/30/the-illegality-of-the-supreme-courts-national-anthem-order/.

This write-up gives a very good understanding but maybe a bit technical so my layman’s analysis meant for fellow laymen. Much of the information is got from the above site which incidentally is also a very informative site on law in general.

The facts/history:

1) This is not a judgement but an interim order.

2) One Mr. SHYAM NARAYAN CHOUKSEY a [sic] Public Spirited person on 28^th October 2016 filed a writ petition before the supreme court. The basic request which this public spirited person had to the court was “take appropriate steps to specify what would be constituting disrespect and abuse of the National Anthem. In the petition, reference has been made to Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, 1971. It is averred in the petition that sometimes the National Anthem is sung in various circumstances which are not permissible and cannot be legally countenanced regard being had to the national honour.”

3) The petition contained some “suggestions” to be followed.

4) The court posted this case for hearing for 30^th Nov.

5) The court passed an interim order on 30^th November. Highlights of the order are:

a. There will be no commercial benefit from the national anthem

b. There can be no “dramatization” of the anthem.

c. National Anthem cannot be printed on any object

d. All cinema halls will play the national anthem before the start of any movie

e. The doors to the hall will be locked during this playing so that no one can create any disturbance.

f. The national flag should be shown on the screen during this playing

g. ….

The court felt that among other things:

[sic]The directions are issued, for love and respect for the motherland is reflected when one shows respect to the National 4 Anthem as well as to the National Flag. That apart, it would instill the feeling within one, a sense committed patriotism and nationalism.

The order goes on to state with some reasoning in-between:

“Be it stated, a time has come, the citizens of the country must realize that they live in a nation and are duty bound to show respect to National Anthem which is the symbol of the Constitutional Patriotism and inherent national quality. It does not allow any different notion or the perception of individual rights, that have individually thought of have no space. The idea is constitutionally impermissible.”

The above are all factual Here are my comments in no specific order:

1) If you can understand the last sentence, please enlighten me. I have read it a couple of times and don’t understand what this means. I might be wrong, but it seems to me that the learned lordships state that individual rights have no place. Hopefully I am wrong.

2) The judgment seems to have accepted all the suggestions of the petitioner. There is no logic as to why this applies only to cinemas and not to any other place and also asks the question if citizens can start making their own laws by filing a public interest litigation and requesting the courts to accept the same

3) Someone has since requested modification of this order to include singing of the national anthem in courts which has been rejected on technical grounds and a statement to not take the judgement too far [HAHA].

4) This gets a bit interesting. There seems to have been a similar case filed in Bhopal against the move Kabhi Khushi Khabi Gham before (hold your breath) the same judge who had ordered a stay on the film on account of the national anthem being played in the film. Details here https://indiankanoon.org/doc/1836522/ (Warning: A lot of “learned” and “honourable” people are mentioned in this document and it is not light reading. I gave up after 2 pages). This judgement was subsequently quashed by the supreme court https://indiankanoon.org/doc/862307/. So part of this new judgement about not allowing dramatization of the national anthem is an old story which was found to be not in order and it seems it being reopened.

Some thoughts:

1) This is one more example of judicial activism which I had written about earlier and which seems to getting more and more dangerous with time. The courts seem to be wanting to take over legislative functions.

2) It is shocking that the government along with various politicians seems to be supporting this order. This is a complete abdication of their duties.

3) As a citizen of this country, I am shocked that the highest court of this country spends time listening to such issues. As per my understanding the role of the supreme court is to adjudicate largely on constitutional issues and ensure that fundamental rights of citizens are not violated. The constitution of India guarantees me the freedom of speech and expression within reason and this judgement seems to say the opposite. I just hope my understanding is wrong

Why dont they get it about linkedin ?

2016-08-21T19:50:00.001+05:30

I don’t have any quantitative data to prove or disprove my hypothesis that a vast user base of linkedin don’t get it. They don’t understand the purpose of linkedin and how to use it effectively. Let me try and list out the major annoyance that affect me.

Confusing linkedin and social networking sites like facebook

Maybe in some industries the distinction between social networking and professional networking is blurred but it is certainly not in my industry and I would assume most of my network. Posts on politics, sports etc. really have no place on linkedin. I would go one step further and say that is downright annoying. The problem is that if one your connections “likes” the post, it comes up in the news feed. It is not a very big job to unfollow the perpetrator but then what is the purpose of being connected?

Cryptic “I would like to add you to my professional network”.

This actually belongs as cardinal sin one. Now if I don’t know you why would I want to add you to my network unless I know something about how this connection would be beneficial to me. If you are trying to tap my network, you are not going to succeed since this is hidden. I initially used to not add anyone I didn’t know personally but had to abandon this after realizing that I forget names of people who resurface after years and decades. Now there is no algorithm to decide which invitations to accept and which ones to reject and it is quite random.

Glancing through this post a bit, I thought this is a good excuse to start cleaning up the connection list and removing people I personally don’t know but had to abandon this planned action seeing the amount of work involved.

So how does one use linkedin in way to get benefit. ?

I don’t fully don’t know the answer to this one. I find the noise to signal ratio just to high.

My rough cut estimate is that 10-20% of my connection list post something of interest to me. So what works now is that as I am glancing through my connection list, I just unfollow the remaining 80% as when I see some posts. Another technique is to use tags constructively. I add a tag as soon as I add a connection. I have not yet found out what to do which this tagged information but assume it will help me at a later date.

If anyone reads this post and can comment on how they use linkedin effectively and get some benefit out of it – it would be appreciated.

My unease with the NJAC judgement

2015-10-17T18:04:00.000+05:30

I type this as I am watching the news of the Supreme Court striking down the NJAC enacted by parliament. Following current events with knowledge of elementary civics since many many years, I am slightly more informed than most even if this is a self-assessment and this self-assessment may not pass the pomposity test.

Now I might be in a minority in my views but I do think that this is a judgement which has far reaching consequences which might conflict with our democracy. Whether it is correct/legal or not can be better opinioned by experts in this field and I cannot claim to be one. But I can claim to have some amount of common sense and at the end of the day, law is largely common sense. There are some aspects which are slightly more complex than can be obtained by common sense but this can easily be understood by some reading on the subject.

As was remarked in an earlier blog entry, democracy has 3 + pillars:

- The legislature – who make laws

- The executive who administer the laws

- The judiciary who interpret the laws and protect the rights of citizens and the constitution on which our society is based.

No one organ is above the other and these pillars are like a three legged table. If any one leg is of unequal length, the stability of the table is affected. This is the exact situation we are in today.

For a little historic perspective in a highly compressed form:

In the 60s and 70s, the governments of the day were very strong along with a strong backing of a strong legislature. This made pushing laws quite easy. The judiciary abrogated it role of protecting the rights of citizens during the emergency, for example by ruling that fundamental rights were not so fundamental during an emergency. A strong prime minister then ensured that the judiciary remained sympathetic to the government cause and there was a clear executive interference in the judiciary and which compromised the integrity . Post emergency saw a resurgent judiciary determined to regain lost ground. It would take volumes to explain this in detail but the resurgent judiciary along with weak collation governments and a fractured parliament saw what is called “judicial over reach”.

One milestone was ruling about the basic structure of the constitution. While this cannot be explained in brief, the basic points that arose was:

1 Parliament was a creation of the constitution and could not do anything to alter the “basic structure of the constitution”

2 The supreme court was the final authority on deciding what was the basic structure of the constitution.

Another milestone was changing the method of appointment of judges. Till then, Supreme court and High Court judges were selected by the executive in “consultation” with the chief justice of India. In the name of judicial independence and interpretation of “conulatation”, the supreme court changed the system and took over the role of appointment of judges and made a system of collegium. The collegium has no basis in law nor the constitution and this in my opinion was a case of overreach.

Another milestone was the concept of Public Interest litigations. The intent was a noble one and was meant to protect the rights of undertrials and that section of society which was not aware of their rights nor had the means to protect the same. The PIL allowed not stake holders to file cases. More on this a few paragraphs later.

What Changed:

Subsequently weaker governments and a lack of accountability from the judiciary saw a lop sided situation in our democracy. The system of judges appointing judges remained unprecedented and is unique to India. As has been widely reported there is no country in the world with such a system. The NJAC was an attempt to restore some balance by making the executive a stakeholder in the judicial appointment process.

Now the constitution has placed law making the prerogative of the legislature. Parliament is accountable to the people who have voted them and it has to be assumed that they reflect the will of the people. While this might be not be realistically true on many occasions, we have to go with this assumption or acknowledge that democracy has failed . The role of the judiciary viz a viz laws is to check whether laws are in line with the constitution and they cannot get into either the law making process or policy/administrative domain.

The NJAC has been held to be against the basic constitution. The judgement runs into a bit more than 1000 pages so it is difficult to get into the reasoning behind the judgement. However going by media reports the following are the points with my comments:

1) The new law alters the basic structure of the constitution by giving the executive a primacy in judicial appointment thereby impacting judicial independence which is a basic structure of the constitution.

- As far as I can see, there is no primacy given to the executive with the NJAC. It is quite a balanced body with enough checks and balances. There are members of the body from the judiciary who have veto powers and an undesirable candidate. Executive involvement should not be confused with executive primacy. Executive/Legislative participation in the appointment process is something established all over the world and we do need to look inwards if we think it is wrong in the Indian context.

2) The collegium system is a good solution and can be improved.

- There are 2 parts to this point.

o Which system is better ?

o Does it make any difference from a legal perspective ?

- Which system is better can be debated at length and there will be no common ground found. The second question is the more important one – viz – Does it matter?. The question here is not which system is better but which is legal. Parliament’s job is to make laws and judicial scrutiny is to check whether the laws passed are against the constitution. This is the major point which is getting diluted with the question of which is a better system. The case should just dwell on the aspect of who makes laws and not get into how to improve the current system. It makes absolutely no difference as to which is the better system from a constitutional point of view. Parliament is elected by the people and is finally accountable to them. If parliament does not reflect the will of the people, the voice of the people will be heard during elections. We deserve the government we vote !!! I am not sure why this line of reasioning is followed by so many luminaries participating in this discussion.

3) A unwise choice by the NJAC would have far reaching conseqeunces and the damage from such an act cannot be easily undone.

- This is a risk and hence there should be enough checks and balances. A law cannot be struck down because there is a fear that it will not work. There have been stalwarts appointed under the old system who had the courage to take on the establishment on occasions. There have been mediocre and bad appointments under the collegium system so it is childish to assume that a collegium would make a better choice than a diverse body. The collegium system is shrouded in secrecy with no accountability to anyone. Food for thought: Todays times of India reports that 99 judges of the high court and Supreme court are related to other judges.

4) The government is the biggest litigant in the country and hence having the law minister as part of the NJAC would compromise its integrity

- This is debatable and I am not sure of the answer. However by this same logic, the NJAC case is being heard by a bench of the supreme court who are also stakeholders and hence the quality of judgement could be compromised. Also by the same logic a frivolous view could be that judges should not be allowed to vote since they are indirectly involved in the selection of legislative members.

So to summarize, my opinion is this is a very unbalanced judgement and is more about distrust between a strong institution and an emergent one. My fear is thar the democratic process will be the casualty. There might be short term benefits in terms of holding in a non working legislature but the long term damage is too large to ignore.

Remember the three legged table.

Journalism, Medicine and the change from mission to business

2014-03-02T10:43:00.001+05:30

Since the last year or months, the following which I can easily remember used to hog the television prime time 24 x 7.

1) Arvind Kejriwal waving some papers in front of television camera’s accusing Rovert Vadra of some land fraud .

2) The whole Tarun Tejal incident

3) The Devyani incident. The Indian government had asked the USA embassy about details of people working in the US school. Prima Facia there was some suspicion of visa fraud.

4) A prominent TV anchor screaming that “India needs to know” and this channel will not rest until ....

None of the above has come remotely close to a logical closure. All have been replaced with some new topic that can hog headlines and grab viewer attention. Before the days of television, the newspaper was the main inputs for news and commentary. There was a clear separation of editorial integrity and business needs and rarely was there any compromise between the 2. Editors were celebrities in their own right.

It is true that the prime goal of any business is to do business, but by and large this is intertwined with some other objective. The 4^th estate is one of the pillars of democracy and once this missions is forgotten, a part of democracy is compromised.

It is something akin to whay is happening in medicine. I don’t know if this is related or unrelated to my above point. My friend and physician Dr. B C Rao sums it up very well in his blog http://badakerecrao.blogspot.in/2012_05_01_archive.html

Maidgate, Vienna Convention and a search for a balanced view

2013-12-29T19:48:00.000+05:30

This post was written a few weeks back just when the “diplomat incident” was hogging all media time and headlines. I did not post it then but am doing so now. However some of the facts may be somewhat incorrect since recent developments have not been taken into account.

The news have been mostly around the diplomat incident for the last few days and till date I don’t see very few balanced opinions on this subject. I personally feel a sense of outrage and think that this cannot be taken lying down. I do hope that this issue does not die down with any conclusion like so many of the recent issues. (ed: it has died down since I wrote this post)

Being curious of other points of view I did read a couple of non Indian journals and see a very wide gulf in our view of this whole incident versus that of Non Indians.

To make this very simple we need to acknowledge the fact that there are 4 different issues here

1) The alleged crime committed by the diplomat

Now the facts are not very clear so it is difficult to form an opinion. It seems that the diplomats maid has made a complaint based on which the arrest was made. There is no evidence to suggest that the diplomat was questioned or asked her opinion or what evidence was examined to arrive at the conclusion of a crime. There could be 2 crimes here, one of paying less than minimum wages and one of “lying” to a USA federal agent. Further discussion on this subject is not very productive without any of the facts and some knowledge of USA law. The line of argument that “everyone does it” is not a defense. However the facts around granting a visa to the maid and her family and the hurry and timing with which they flew out of India is something without precedent. It is a complete mockery of Indian law and I wonder what Americans would feel if India spirited out an American Citizen against whom there was a criminal case pending.

2) The manner of her arrest and subsequent treatment

This is a difficult one. I briefly glanced through the Vienna Convention and am convinced that there has been a gross violation

Article 41 is quite clear on this:

PERSONAL INVIOLABILITY OF CONSULAROFFICERS

1. Consular officers shall not be liable toarrest or detention pending

trial, exceptin the caseof a grave crime and pursuant toa decision by the competent judicial

authority.

2. Except inthe case specified in paragraph 1ofthis Article, consular officers shall not be

committed toprison orliable to any other form ofrestriction on theirpersonal freedomsave in

execution of a judicial decision offinal effect.

As a layman, this seems quite unambigious and should be the focus of all further discussion. This is really the crux of the issue and deviating from this dilutes the crux. Unfortunately a lot of discussion is going on about the diplomats background, her connections. All this might be true but still does not justify her arrest. As has been pointed out by many people, this is not an attack on Devyani but an attack on India.

3) Indian Media Response

The Indian media have provided a stellar service in ensuring that the news get maximum exposure. Much of the reporting since is quite inaccurate and portrays wrong perception. In general the quality of journalism has been on a rapid decline which is a result of a battle to capture viewers. More of this on a later post. The interesting comments are from western columns. They feel that India is over reacting on this. One reason of course is the dilution of discussion on the core issue as pointed out above. Indians certainly have an issue in expecting VIP treatment for celebrities and “VIPs”. The word VIP is a very Asian concept. One thing I found interesting in discussions with some Americans on some new channel was the fact that they did not seem to be aware of international law or felt it was subservient to American law. I am not making any editorial comment on this for now.

4) Indian Government response

For once, the Indian government has done absolutely the right thing. The opposition has strangely behaved in a responsible way by uniting with the government on this front. Reciprocity should be followed by us strictly. We by and large have a servile attitude to non nationals which galls me at least. I have personally seen (15 years back) Indian security staff at the US consulate at Chennai beating up auto drivers who drove by slowly waiting to pick up passengers and have always wondered how this was tolerated. Any sensible person would know that while it is important to assuage a furious public, real diplomacy happens through back door channels. Both are important. It would help if the media and public on the real issue at hand, viz apparently a false arrest and a clear violation of international law. The steps taken by the Indian government are in the right direction but should certainly by upped. It is gratifying that India is following reciprocity very strongly as is evident from the withdrawal of privileges to USA consular staff. Some papers have reported that the US Ambassador to India cancelled her vacation after removal of certain airport privileges, a fact that has not been confirmed. However it is certainly very plausible.

5) Closure

An interesting point is what would be closure in this case. I think there would be 3 points for closure

a) Respecting the rights of an Indian official. If there is a strong case that American laws were willingly violated, then she should be deported. The USA diplomatic community who don’t have immunity should be ready to expect the same treatment in India in case they break any law.

b) An apology for the wrongful arrest.

Given that the USA has not apologized for killing civilians in Pakistan, it is very doubtful that this will be acceded to.

c) An assurance that this will not be repeated

d) An immediate return to India of the maid who is legally absconding..

Not sure about whether any of this will happen

What in most likelihood is going to happen is some “behind the scence” negotitions which are diametrically opposite to public posturing and waiting it out till something new grabs mind share.

Metrics and Measurements

2013-09-01T20:58:00.001+05:30

Voice on phone: Sir, On a scale of 8-10, how would you rate our service?
Me:                    I would not rate you on a scake of 8-10
Voice:                 Sir Why wouldnt you rate us on a scale of 8-10
Me:                     Because 8-10 is not a scale.
Voice:                  Ok, How would you rate us on a scale of 1-10
Me:                     Sorry I cannot rate since you have confused me completely now.

This is an actual conversation that happened with a car service station a couple of years back.

I am reminded of this incident because of a recent similar incident with an automobile provider.

There are some issues with my new car and I am getting continious calls from some call center asking me about my "purchase, marketing and delivery experience". When i tell them about my overall unsatisfactory experience which is still unresolved, they get confused and ask me to rate just the marketing and purchase experience. To cut the conversation short, I tell them I am overall unsatisfied but if they want feedback I can give it to them, but ask them to confirm if they really want it since my experience is negative. This normally either scares or confuses them and they say it is okay and hangup. Unfortunately some checklist somewhere shows that my feedback is not complete so I get periodic phone calls with the same questions and the cycle will continue till some one finally crosses my name from the checklist.

Ok What has this got to do with metrics and measurements?

This is a malaise that is spreading far and wide and shows how wrong measurements can generate wrong behaviours. In the above example, the person did not know if she should collect negative feedback and took the easy way out by just not collecting the feedback. In the process the company lost an opportunity to get genuine feedback and worse got a lot of contaminated feedback since it was incomplete. In the first case of the scale of 8-10 it was either fudging at its worst, or a complete defective program intended for self delusion or to fool the world.

Now the fault does not lie with the people who do the surveys but rather the management which is not clear about what and why they are measuring. Take for example a resteraunt. In case you fill in the feedback and mention that something was average, you have delayed your leaving for some time while the staff keep asking you why your feedback was "average" and not "good" and hinting at the fact that they will get into trouble with such feedback. In such cases I take the easy way out and just mark excellent for everything which again will waste a lot of other peoples time (and saving mine) while they collect, collate and analyze all the incorrect data and come to wrong conclusions.

The above were very simple and a "Dummies example" but this same problem is very prevalent in the field of software which is my bread and butter. Software and more so in the Indian context has some
charecteristics which make measurement very fuzzy. The whole measurement hoopla started when companies started chasing ISO and CMM and came to the conclusion that it was mandatory to collect metrics without understanding the intent. In the chase to get the coveted ISO certification or CMM assessment (many people confuse certifiation and assessment) , the metrics became the goal. In one of the software process discussion forums I used to frequent, a common question was "We want to start ISO/CMM/Sig sigma...) , so whar metrics should we collect"? The frivlous answer which I made on occasions was to ask "What are you trying to achieve?". If you are not sure, collect some easy metrics like the temperature, humidity..... If you know what you want to achieve, select measurements that will tell you if you are on track to reching your goals or not. However without knowing what you want to achieve, there is no point in measuring anything.

Collecting metrics for the sake of collecting metrics is a waste of time.

I have thought a lot on why we have still no clarity in the are of software measurements. There are volumes of books and papers on this subject, but for some reason I have very rarely seen a successful metrics program implemented which really used as a leading indicator for a strategic goal. I dont claim to be an expert or authority but do have considerable exposure to the industry and stand by my belief. I am not sure as to what the reason is for this gap.

Here are the some of the possible reasons:

1) Software is an art and not a science. Imagine if Leonardo Da Vince was managed by metrics. He would be tracking how many square feet of canvas he painted per day?
2) We are a bit fuzzy about what we do (ok this is an exagerration)
3) The whole measurement programs are designed by non practioners without any strong management sponorship, largely to satisfy some statutory requirement.I think this is the second most most common cause
4) The metrics are used to judge peoples performance. This in my opinion is the most common reason for a metric program failure. This is a very controversial subject with the majority of the view that how do you make people accountable for something unless they are measured. Now I dont have a very convincing answer for this exceppt to fall back on authorities and the fact that far more knowledablepeople and gurus say that metrics should not be used to judge people but are a tool to guide you to achieve objectives and
meeting the objectives is what should be used to judge performance. This is actually a whole discussion by itself and I will leave it at this. What is important to note is that practice of linking improvement metrics to individual performance is what generates wrong behaviours. A dummies example would be call centers where the employees I presume are measured by the number of calls they close per unit time. What is not measured is the percent of saisfactory resolution which I understand encourages the front end employees to close calls by just transferring to the next link which is normally more expensive. I cant think of crystal clear examples in the soatware arena and will leave it to another post.

I am looking for a forum to discuss this further but have got a bit rusty in this field. Anyway I hope this post generates some discussion since I am myself curious about this discussion.

What is important to note that measurements, metrics and KPIs are an absolutely invaluable tool for any sort of improvement or tracking and it is important to get this right.

Sanjay Dutt and Italian Marines

2013-03-25T19:46:00.001+05:30

Having stopped watching television for a couple of weeks I found that I was not missing anything much. By and large watching the news debate is very interesting to observe people’s opinions on something they know nothing about. It is also interesting or depressing to see politicians views and outlook and the partisan attitude to anything and everything.

It was a misfortune that I got engrossed in the recent two issues of national importance viz the Sanjay Dutt sentencing and the return of the Italian marines.

1) Sanjay Dutt had all my sympathy. There was no doubt that he had committed a crime and had suffered sufficiently and the sentence seemed a bit excessive. But I did get swayed by an argument on TV where a senior lawyer (Tulsi ?) did open my eyes by his argument.

I On reflecting, I think it is clear:

a. Sanjay Dutt was guilty of a crime of possessing arms illegally. While he has explained his position, the fact remains that he knowingly did something illegal and it is assumed that he knew the consequences of what he did.

b. He has been acquitted of the more serious charges of terrorism but has been consistently found guilty of illegal possession of arms.

c. Our constitution is based on the premise of equality of all before law so he should be tried as any one who does any similar act but does not bear his illustrious named, lineage or connections.

d. Courts need to act based on law and not on public opinion. The most ridiculous argument is the amount of money locked up in films and that is mentioned as a reason to release him.

What is not beeing discussed is that it has taken 20 years since the offense to reach a conclusion. This is not a final conclusion since a review petition can still be filed and it is not known how long this process will take. Why does it take so long to deliver justice ? This is an area which needs urgent reform and which no one is talking about. A lawyer relative had once told me that the law is basically common sense but in India what rules is procedural law viz a viz principles of law. That is, it is very easy to delay justice by following procedures. As a side note, a common method earlier of protest used to be “Work to Rule”. If everyone worked to rule, nothing could be done. When bus drivers and conductors worked to rule, they did not allow anyone to stand, waited till all tickets been purchased before the bus moved….. So working strictly to rule can cause a near collapse of the system.

Coming back to the Sanjay Dutt case – once again my sympathies are with him. HE has committed a big crime but one can say that he has reformed and the idea of a prison sentence is after all to reform criminals and put the fear of prison as a deterrent for crime. But to release or pardon him would mean looking at similar cases and not making any exceptions because of his public standing.

2) Italian Marines

This is also a very strange case. The final result is a credit to firm diplomacy. The facts are clear

1) The Italians did kill the fishermen. This is not premeditated murder but would be homicide.

2) There is a dispute about jurisdiction and this needs to be settled fast

3) They had got bail from the courts and hence has freedom of movement. Chandan Mitra from the BJP was accusing the government of colluding with the Italians pretending to ignore the fact that the govrnment is actually following the law.

4) The Italians were undoubtedly planning on “pulling a fast one” but did buckle under diplomatic pressure.

5) There is no point in ranting on intent but it is important to note that the matter is “resolved”.

6) Credit is due to the government for handling it with the seriousness due. There is no doubt that an aggressive supreme court did contribute to push for a solution. But for the court the government would have dawdled.

7) The Italian government need to keep Italian public interest in mind as much as the Indian government needs to keep Indian public interest in mind. What is said in public is not necessarily said in private. Diplomacy works differently.

What is again not being discussed is the fact that it is 1 year and 2 months since the incident and we are no where near even starting the process of trial. There are 2 straight forward points here, 1) Where is the trial to be conducted given international treaties and laws that we are signatories too and 2) Are the marines guilty of murder and if so of what degree. There is justifiable outrage on the part of the public on the behaviour of the Italian government and ambassador but no one seems to be talking about an immediate trial.

Bandhs and L' Affair Robert Vadhra

2012-10-06T17:53:00.002+05:30

Most of us in Bangalore have been under house arrest in view of the Bangalore Bandh. This bandh has been different from previous ones in that it seems to have a wide support. As always, I doubt anyone knows what the issues are regarding the dispute except that Karnataka should not release water to Tamil Nadu. The cable operators have joined the strike and the only channels working are the news channels. This means one can chose between the Bandh and L’affair Robert Vadhra. Both are equally depressing.

I don’t know anything about the water dispute and will try to educate myself before talking about it. One of the professor types on television seemed to think strongly that Karnataka had a case but I unfortunately watched it towards the end and missed the gist.

The Vadhra episode has been going on repeatedly and makes one more and more depressed. It is difficult to judge which is more ridiculous, the childish rants of Team Arvind or the defence from the Congress. My view is that team Arvind is the more ridiculous and the Congress frontguard of Salman Khurshid makes a stronger case. The self-righteousness of team Arvind and substituting analytical thought with innuendos makes me feel there is not much of a case. The whole affair does look a bit suspicious and might need some investigation but there is just not enough data to prove anything. Assuming that there is a case, Robert Vadhra should certainly face the majesty of the law and assuming there is none, so should Arvind and Prashant. However in India, “the law will take its own course” which means irrespective of either scenario it will take 25-30 years to reach a conclusion.

The media actions and inactions show a gradual collapse of one of the pillars of a democracy – the fourth estate. Indian media seem to have got away from the traditional reporting and commentating to showmanship and pandering to ratings. (This same malaise has hit the health care but that is a different story).

The depressing part which I mentioned earlier is the complete lack of any substance in the debates on television. Most of the political participants seem to substitute quality with volume and try to shout each other down. We are not seeing anything resembling an idealogy or position and these are substituted by mud-slinging

I keep coming back to thinking around ideology. How many of the partys have a clear ideology which they can declare and stick to if voted to power ? Arvind Kejriwal has announced that he would pass the Lokpal bill within 10 days of coming to power. This does indicate that law and civics is not his strong point and he possibly does not know (like most of us) how laws are passed in this country. Prashant Bhushan cannot claim the same ignorance and it is surprising that he is not correcting his political colleague. He goes on to assure us that they will ensure that Petrol (or diesel?) prices will be pegged at Rs. 50 and no one will be allowed to make profits on essential commodities. That shows the same level of ignorance in economics as in civics.

On the subject of debates, www.csun.edu/~dgw61315/fallacies.html may look heavy but is very interesting read and useful. Unfortunately those who need to read it – don’t.

Update: 9-Oct Corrected link to logical fallicies

Judical Activism - Part 1

2012-09-20T20:46:00.001+05:30

The news channel between 8:00 PM and 9:00 PM seems to be the few watch-worthy channels surpassed only by National Geographic and The Discovery families. During this time all channels seem to have debates between various panellists most of whom are familiar faces akin to the Page 3 mugshots one sees in the daily rags.

The low quality of debate never ceases to appal me. After all most of the panellists are supposed to be “experts” in some fields and I guess the low quality come from low quality of thought process and not one of communication, . One subject which seems to hog the limelight nowdays is that of “Judicial Activism”. This is a subject which has interested me since some time and hence maybe debates around this subject are all the more engaging to me.

What stands out in these discussions is the poor or rather lack of knowledge of elementary civics by participants and panellists. I have never validated this, but I feel that in a reasonable sample size, 50% of the sample would not know the difference between the roles and responsibilities of the different organs of the government.

What I find surprising is the universal accolade by common citizens to the judicial system in trying to “clean up” administration. In the short term it is no doubt true that the quality of life has increased because of this activism, however if one sees this in the larger perspective it is a complete break down of constitutional institutes and fraught with danger for the republic.

Let us start by getting a clearer view of the law and the organs. However complex the constitution and the language in it, one must keep in mind that law is basically common sense based around a few principles and there has hardly been any radical innovations in the last many decades.

To give a dummys views, the laws are based on the constitution which Has created three organs. One to create new laws (Legislate) one to implement the laws (Govern) and one to interpret the laws,safeguard the constitution and ensure that justice prevails(Judiciary). The roles of each organ is cleary defined and if any of these organs over step their roles, it is imperative to rectify this immediately. At the end of the day, the people are the ultimate rules and have the power to change anything by their power to vote. This brings a system of checks and balances.

Let us now get into the phenomenon of judicial activism which seems to be more pronounced in India.

Wikipedia is the first choice of research and though it can be hardly called an authority has this to say about Judicial Activism . "Judicial activism describes judicial rulings suspected of being based on personal or political considerations rather than on existing law. It is sometimes used as an antonym of judicial restraint"

I would not subscribe to the above view and would define Judicial Activism as a state where the judiciary takes a much broader view of their powers and tries to reach out justice to the people.

Let us try and understand a bit deeper on what is the role of the judiciary as a prelude to the rest of the article. To put it very simply the judiciary has to:

Ensure justice (both in criminal and civil matters) is done according to law
Interpret the existing laws when there is a doubt therof
Safeguard the structure of the constitution and ensure that the citizens’ rights are protected.

What the judiciary is not supposed to do and would be overstepping their role if they do is:

Create laws or judgements that are perceived as laws
Make decisions outside laws
Get into policy and administration
Be the prosecutor, investigator and judge

A democracy as we were taught in school had 3 pillars as mentioned in the opening paragraph of this article. There is of course the 4^th pillar which is the press. An objective assessment of these pillars would undoubtedly indicate that all pillars are tottering if not already fallen.

The fact that the legislature has stopped legislating and the government has stopped governing is well known. We could argue that the press has played an important role in exposing many institutional misdeeds to the citizens and I will defer my perceptions on breakdown on this front. What is not well known is the breakdown in the judiciary which will be explained in more detail in the next part of this post.

Trip to Masinagudi

2012-08-20T14:33:00.001+05:30

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/travelogues/118733-chaotic-bangalore-calm-masinagudi.html

Old trip to Goa

2012-08-20T14:29:00.004+05:30

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/travelogues/90629-love-story-sun-surf-sand-sorpotel.html

Experimenting

2012-08-20T14:27:00.000+05:30

Blogger had made things far simpler for creating sites for people who are not exactly uptodate with web technology. It was quite easy moving from the old site. Some random posts coming up.

Software Process Improvement - An old post I found

2010-01-04T00:57:00.000+05:30

Found this old post I made on Software Process Improvement alomost 10 years back.

I think it is still applicable

Deepak

After a few months of lurking finally decided to de-lurk and contribute my 2
cents.

Some more guiding principles I would like to add (or duplicate in some cases)

1) The CMM is not a substitute for common sense. This should be repeated over
and over again. If something doesn't make sense in your context, don't do it
even if the CMM says so. However be very clear on why it does not make sense.

2) Concentrate on the goals of the different KPA's and use the "activities
performed" as guiding principles to achieve the goals. Don't get hung up on the
activities outlined in the CMM. The important thing is the goal.

3) Start a measurement program right from the beginning, keep it as simple as
possible but ensure that you will be able to measure progress. for the long
term it may be a good idea to try and calculate the return on investment of PI
activities.

4) Don't bother too early about how you are going to prove compliance. PI
activities are for internal improvement and not to prove to some 3rd party that
they are being done. Once activities are institutionalized it not a big problem
to demonstrate compliance. ( i have seen in many cases the focus on how to
proove something is being done rather on concentrating how to do it).

5) Get buy in from everyone. Never Never mandate some activity because "CMM
requires" it.

6) Never Never make a CMM level a business goal. A business goal should be a
quantitative goal like "cut rework costs by xxxx" or "reduce org. wide effort
slippage by xx%".

7) Remember that processes can only help people, they cannot substitute them.
the CMM is only a model and not a silver bullet, so a level 1 org with great
people can consistently produce better s/w then a l5 org.

An excellent book on s/w pi is by kim caputo, I have forgotten the exact title.
This is one of the few books, which talks of the implementation in a practical
way without too much theoretical issues.

Deepak

Are we Heading the same way ?

2009-11-08T15:53:00.000+05:30

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/11/02/nazca-collapse-trees.html

Seems so - Scary

Industrious Dung Beetle

2009-10-24T16:13:00.002+05:30

Saw this on the road near Masinagudi. From the car, I could not make out what exactly it was and was surpised to see the speed at which the beetle was moving the ball of dung across the road. It nearly got run over by a passing car but did manage to cross the road.

Seeing this little feller at work did generate as much awe as the sighting of 2 subadult elephants

Chemmanatham

2009-05-26T01:41:00.002+05:30

Chemmanatham is a small hamlet, about 2.5 kms east of the village of Mavanalla which itself is on the old Mysore Ooty road.

Chemmanatham appears in the story “The Queer Side of Things” in the book “Tales from the Indian Jungle”.

Not much is known about the history of this village. It is surmised that there was a civilization here which got wiped out a couple of centuries back on account of the “great fever” which could be any of the prevalent tropical disease. Legend says that this was a fortified settlement and stones can be found on the way to the settlement

Currently the village has a few huts where local tribals stay and till their fields.

Chemmantham is also known for its old Basaveswara temple which is is semi ruins and forms the main basis for KA’s story.

The temple is in a semi dilapidated condition but portions of it are surprisingly well preserved. Like all tribal temples, there is no door to the temple and it seems that bears do shelter in the forest in the evenings.

The earliest known photo of the temple appears in KA's book and is shown below

Here is a photo taken of the temple in May 2007

It can be seen that much of the forest has been cleared.

Readers of KA have been making regular trips to this temple and this has become a pilgrimage spot for active KA readers.

Parts of the history were corroborated on 24^th Sep 2007 when a reader reported that he had visited the temple for the first time and was astonished to find a truck full of people there. It transpired that these people were descendants of the original dwellers and their ancestors had fled from the place to Talavadi during the fever. In 1995, a mentally challenged member of their tribe suddenly made a trip to the temple in a feverish delirium and told the people to make this pilgrimage every year and give offerings in the land of their ancestors.

This has become a practice now.

The temple seems to have changed little since it was reported in the book approx 50 years back. KA describes the area as thick forest but the forest seems to have been replaced with shrubs. The well described in the book has dried up and is hidden by weeds now.

The hamlet is encircled by an electric fence to protect against elephants(?)

Cutting Of Trees - Hosur Road

2009-05-17T22:00:00.000+05:30

The Deputy Conservator of Forests

North Division

BBMP

NR Square

Bangalore 560002

Subject: Protest ? Your notice in Deccan Herald dated 16th May 2009

Dear Sir

This has reference to the subject public notice

This is to register my strong objection at the proposal to cut 375 trees as listed in the advertisement

My objections are based on the following:

1) The period of 1 week mentioned is too short a notice to collect public opinion. It would seem that this notice is to comply with the letter of the law and not the spirit. If as mentioned in the notice that the felling of the trees is inevitable, then what opinion is being sought from the public? However since opinions have been sought from the public, these should be considered before any permission to allow tree felling is considered

2) It has not been communicated if other options have been explored before a decision that has the probability of irreparable damage on the environment. Has any alternatives been considered and more important ? have any suggestions from the public been reviewed ?

3) It would seem logical to plant saplings elsewhere and then fell the trees. The planting should happen before the felling. Development work of this nature has assumedly been planned a long time back. Why the planting can?t be similarly planned? The BBMP does not have a very good track record in this regard. What are the precautions being taken to ensure that the green cover is being replenished?

I therefore strongly protest and urge you to consider the above before granting permission for the felling and please do provide clarification on the above points

Yours Sincerely

Cc: The Chief Conservator of Forests, Karnataka