VOX POPULI

by

Aam Admi

Issue:128

Date: 01.09.2012

Contents:

1. Indian Lawyers Handing The Italian Marines Case Of Killing The Keralite Fishermen

2. Sparrow As State Bird, LED Bulbs As Recommended Usage in Delhi

3. The Death Sentence On Kasab

4. Time To Review Gun Control In The US

5. Propaganda War On Syria

6. Have National Consensus On Grave National Issues

7. UPA – 2 Ministers: Stop Bluffing & Accept Responsibility

Indian Lawyers Handing The Italian Marines Case Of Killing The Keralite Fishermen

The fact that Harish Salve, one of our eminent lawyers and a sharp intellectual brain, representing the interests of the Italian marines who shot and killed two of our Keralite fishermen comes across as somewhat depressing. When the Ajmal Kasab trial involved in the 26/11 terror attack was coming up in Mumbai the lawyer fraternity refused to appear on his behalf considering the dastardly crime that he had committed. The Italian marine case is equivalent and no Indian lawyer should have involved himself in this matter since it was cold-blooded killing of the fishermen on a vessel which was many times smaller than the Italian vessel and one never knows what risk the Italians perceived from the proximity of the fishing vessel. The Somalian pirates must have on the top of the marines' minds or like we have seen in the case of the US both in the theaters of war and also when they return home, the soldiers tend to have psychological problems and kill without any compunction and in a trigger-happy mode anyone who is not of their own kind. Harish Salve in his defence of the Italian marines has raised questions of the State of Kerala's jurisdiction in the territorial waters to prove the case void which is treading on aspects of one's national pride. When lawyers take up such cases, is it all about money or seeking the limelight? Do they not judge the morality of the case before they get involved? Most of the time their justification for taking up such cases is that if they do not take it up, someone else of their fraternity will take it up? The question to Harish Salve then would be whether you were willing to sell your principles for being busy and for a few pieces of silver? In terms of being pragmatic and giving the benefit of the matter to the Italian marines the case should have been dismissed and/or withdrawn once the ‘blood money’ was paid including to both the dead and the injured as well as damage done to the fishing vessel in the incident compensated. This would have set the precedent that India was unwilling to keep quiet if its people were attacked without provocation and was reasonable to settle once compensation was paid according to the country of origin of the attackers. The State of Kerala had handled the matter well by first taking the Italian vessel into custody and then in a manner of conciliation releasing it which should have applied to the release of the Italian marines also once the individual compensation was paid. This would have obviated people like Harish Salve from getting involved or tempted to handle such cases.

Sparrow As State Bird, LED Bulbs As Recommended Usage in Delhi

There are a couple of things that Sheila Dixit as Chief Minister of Delhi needs to be commended with the onerous job of presiding over the rape and road accident capital of the country and that is for firstly, elevating the humble sparrow as the State bird of Delhi. In these days where there is urgent need of bird conservation, this is welcome news and one hopes that the Delhi government will put in place measures to protect these humble but very industrious birds. However, it is up to the birds themselves to give the mark of approval for this initiative since when this was similarly done in London & New York, it was found while the sparrow took to New York with alacrity, the numbers in London continued to dwindle. It is a factor of air pollution and the available spaces for the birds to nest in which determines whether they take to a city or not. However, Delhi, in any case, needs to be commended for this initiative. The other thing that the Delhi government has done is to subsidise LED bulbs to be used in place of the CFL bulbs for acceptance by Delhi's citizens since the latter bulbs contain mercury which is difficult to dispose of safely. Thus the CFL bulbs which reach their end of life become a problem to the environment. More and more State governments should emulate these commendable initiatives of Delhi.

The Death Sentence On Kasab

In the Bidwe trial in the UK, the trial was completed within months and the sentence was announced quickly on the person who accosted and shot Bidwe. While with Ajmal Kasab we continue to agonise on his death sentence years after the incident though there were umpteen eye-witnesses and the incident was recorded on CCTV showing Kasab killing our citizens without any compunction. Even now after the Supreme Court has confirmed the death sentence, it is said that he is the 6th on the list of those awaiting execution and it may take another 3-10 years before Kasab is actually hanged. The saying that - The Wheels Of Justice Grind slowly, is very much true only in India it seems. On one thing that you can agree with the Shiv Sena is that Kasab should be publicly hanged at the earliest opportunity since otherwise we will continue to spend crores on his biryani and security at the Arthur Road jail in Mumbai.

Time To Review Gun Control In The US

After the Aurora, Colorado incident of the gunman opening fire at the inaugural of the new Batman movie a couple of months back there have a total of four such incidents in the US ending with the one in New York last week where animosity triggered the shooting of one employee against another but in which nine innocent bystanders were inflicted gunshot wounds in the process of killing the rogue gunman. The question as to why innocent bystanders should get injured is something that US lawmakers and their media would definitely debate and take adequate precautionary measures but these incidents all combined which have taken so many lives should prompt the political leadership to seriously review the country's Gun Control laws. Surely New York near the Empire State Building is not a saloon in Dodge City in the old US Wild West for Wyatt Earp, Billy the Kid and others to exhibit their shooting skills. Surely the citizens of the US deserve something better in terms of security while going about their day to day lives. The contention among US citizens that is oft parroted to support Gun Control and that is possessing a gun by US citizens gives them the feel of freedom is something which is clearly a mistaken notion and which needs to be quickly corrected. Otherwise on the back of these incidents and those ranging back up to the Columbine school massacre fond as well as tragic memories will haunt the victim's families for all time.Postscript: At the time of writing this, there has been another attack by a gunman on his colleagues at New Jersey, killing two of them. Is it not time for the US to act and licence gun ownership?

Propaganda War On Syria

Going into the last weekend when one switched on the BBC TV International News you would have found a news item where there was reporting from Beirut by the BBC correspondent on the events in Syria since going into the country would have involved probably getting killed like the Japanese journalist did and mentioning unconfirmed reports about some 200 killed near Daraya. Why BBC given its credibility should firstly, put out 'unconfirmed reports' is something that is not understood and the reporter continued in this vein of 'unconfirmed reports' throughout the news item. When there is enough and more news to cover around the world why this zeroing in on Syria is a simple question that comes to one's mind? Is this not tantamount to rumour mongering by a reputed, established and trusted newscaster? The manner in which this was done was clearly like interfering in the affairs of a sovereign country with the deliberate intention of slandering it. Goebbels of Nazi vintage was credited for propaganda blitzes that undermined fact and give concoctions the status of truth. This exercise by the BBC clearly fits into the same undesirable category. Similarly, the UK, France and the US have been threatening Syria in the event that they used chemical weapons, it would attract military intervention. This again is moving into the realm of 'ifs and buts' which for responsible nations is something that cannot be considered acceptable. These initiatives are like a propaganda war on a nation like Syria which is miniscule in size as well as economic and military strength compared to the named countries as above. The West does not probably consider that if they had not interfered in Syria's affairs now or that of Iraq, Afghanistan and many other nations in the Arab world in the recent past then so many lives would probably not have been lost both innocent as well as those in whom unnecessary expectations have been kindled. A bit of rationality and the principle of 'live and let live' would have helped.

Have National Consensus On Grave National Issues

The protest on the government clamping down on social media networks in the light of the distribution of SMS/MMS’ after the Assam riots suspected to have Pakistani links by people like Gujarat CM Narendra Modi and RSS Ram Madhav is completely irresponsible. When there is a national problem, it is expected that people of different political parties and hues should unite and resolve the problem rather than add to it. Granted that our authorities woke up late to the situation created by the distribution of these doctored messages which started the exodus of the North East people from all parts of India back home which is nothing new since on terror and other direct threat situations, our police sit on the intelligence and wake up only after the event has occurred. This is more so in this context of thinking about the possibility of social media being used for such propaganda when we are supposed to be the leaders in IT technology around the world and not knowing what to do and as usual grasping and fumbling around and in the process making gaffes like disabling Twitter accounts of totally unconnected people and even that of a Central Minister. Social media use in the Arab Spring revolutions which drifted westwards from Yemen to Libya lately must not have been lost on our intelligence authorities or maybe they are not up to looking at such trends. But in the spirit of better late than ever action, the government and concerned authorities should be supported and nothing should be done to be counter-productive to the initiative to defuse the potentially explosive situation and bring about normalcy. On national matters, for God’s sake, play ball.

UPA – 2 Ministers: Stop Bluffing & Accept Responsibility‏

People in the government and ministers particularly think that this whole country is populated by duffers. Otherwise why would P Chidambaram go out and make out his case on the Coalgate scam that when no coal was mined after all, nothing was lost? But that life it has been often said is not the case for acquittal from corruption. Non-governance is. The fact that this country’s natural resources were given away for a song is. Is this so difficult for the Congress political big-wigs to get into their thick skulls. By blaming the BJP or this, that and the other political party and the States that they also did something similar is no licence for the UPA-2 government remains. For the fault, grievous in its nature, remains and no addin more people and parties to it dilutes it in any way. This is not the first time that the Congress has attempted this since while trying to explain away the 2G scam, Kapil Sabil the newly appointed Minister did try the same thing. If for allocation of mines in the coal ministry, the coal minister is not responsible then the country need be told about who is. And that precisely is the reason why the PM should quit accepting moral responsibility for the scam. This is time honored procedure to quit and then prove himself innocent. For him as PM to seek extraordinary privilege is simply not done. On the fact that the government and its ministers thinks that in this country apart from them everyone else is a duffer, has again recently ben exposed by Beni Prasad Verma who while in UP recently said that inflation actually helps farmers. This puts all known theories of economics on its head. The gumption in firstly making such statements and then defending them is stunning. What kind of stage or into which blind alley have we run this country into for being governed by such idiots? By massaging the top of the mind issues, playing the caste card, creating vote banks, by bribing voters and essentially pandering and manipulating the illiterate class of this country, our politicians have come to believe that anything goes and they can get away with murder. This has to stop and the first step in this process is for the PM to step down.

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