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THE HINDU EDITORIALS

A suspicious suspension

At worst, its a criminal conspiracy; and at best, its cynical politics. Either way, nothing can possibly justify the suspension o

Uttar Pradesh IAS officer Durga Shakti Nagpal by the Samajwadi Party government. Even going by Chief Minister Akhilesh

Yadavs explanation that action against her was taken as the government anticipated communal trouble after an illegally

constructed wall of a mosque was demolished under her supervision; the hastily-ordered suspension makes no sense. Whthe villagers are upset at the demolition of the wall, they also insist there is no danger of violence. The most charitable

explanation for Ms Nagpals suspension would have to be that the SP is trying to play politics with the religious sentiments

the people. But at what cost? Though there is no evidence of Ms Nagpal having acted illegally or irresponsibly, Mr. Yadav

appears to have based his decision on the petty political calculations of a local ruling party MLA, Narinder Bhati, who nurse

ambitions of standing from the area for the Lok Sabha. Sadly for the Muslims of U.P., politicians seeking the votes of the

community do so on the basis of protection racket politics rather than actually working to improve the living conditions of

ordinary Muslims. As we head towards 2014, it is apparent the Samajwadi Party intends to pursue this approach.

What makes Ms Nagpals suspension as the Gautambudhnagar sub-divisional magistrate doubly alarming is that she was

active in the crackdown against illegal sand mining on the Yamuna and Hindon river banks. The IAS officer had made enem

of the politically powerful sand and building mafia by organising special squads against illicit mining and seizing their illega

loads. Whether it was Mr. Bhati who chose to take political advantage of the mosque wall demolition or it was the sand

mining mafia that used the mosque issue as an opportunity to get rid of an inconvenient officer, the unmistakable fact is t

Ms Nagpal is a victim of political machinations. The rules governing tenure for the bureaucracy, including all-India services

like the IAS, are complicated. While there is no easy way for the Central government to intervene in favour of Ms Nagpal, a

suggested by Congress president Sonia Gandhi in a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the Uttar Pradesh governme

must realise its mistake and revoke the suspension immediately. The facts being what they are, this is not a matter that ou

to be escalated as a dispute between the Centre and the State; hopefully, Chief Minister Yadav will see sense, and not

sacrifice the interests of governance and administrative efficiency for some imaginary political gain.

Cat and mouse games 8th

August 2013

The Congress and the Samajwadi Party are natural rivals forced into an unnatural relationship by their respective political

compulsions. This explains the SP leaderships volatile and frequent mood changes with respect to the Congress and the

United Progressive Alliance. Mulayam Singh and other SP leaders have become painfully formulaic in their reactions to the

Congress: attack the party, take the quarrel to a level where a parting of ways seems imminent, but at the critical moment

somehow find an excuse not to execute the threats. There is no longer any surprise or suspense over how a spat between

two parties will end, and the charade looks like playing out in one more case that of IAS officer Durga Shakti Nagpal, wh

suspension by the Akhilesh Yadav government has triggered a national uproar. The SP blew a fuse when Sonia Gandhi wroto Prime Minister Manmohan Singh urging that the officer not be treated unfairly. What must have riled the SP is that th

Congress presidents letter was not written for forms sake or merely to appear to be doing justice. Far from it, Ms Gandhi

only made it clear she did not buy the SPs story, she robustly endorsed the commonly accepted view that the officer was

fact vindictively suspended for standing up to the sand mining mafia in western Uttar Pradesh.

With the SP expectedly livid, the stage was set for another round of bitter verbal warfare and retaliation. Mr. Mulayam Sin

justified the action against Ms Nagpal and the State government proceeded to charge-sheet her even as the party made

headlines with its announcement that it will oppose the Food Security Bill awaiting passage in the ongoing monsoon sessio

of Parliament. There are multiple reasons why the SP is unlikely to go the full hog. It can press amendments to the Bill

failing which stage a walkout but it cannot afford to be seen as voting against a welfare measure for the poor. The party

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aware that the Congress is in a position to find other supporters for the Bill. And finally, given the SPs precarious situation

U.P., the party will be wise not to precipitate a crisis with the potential to lead to an early general election. The SP has to

attack the Congress because of their shared pursuit of the Muslim constituency, which is perceived to have become more

amenable to shepherding with the arrival of Narendra Modi as the face of the BJP. So when the Congress takes up for an

officer like Ms Nagpal, it becomes the perfect opportunity for the SP to showcase its allegedly pro-Muslim credentials. The

will of course calibrate its moves to suit its own partisan interests. But tragically for Muslims, they are more harmed than

helped by these brinkmanship games.

Victim of political skullduggery? 2nd

August 2013

When young IAS officer Durga Shakti Nagpal, in her capacity as SDM of Gautambudhnagar, recently ordered the pulling do

of the wall of a proposed mosque, she provided an ambitious local Samajwadi Party MLA and chairperson of the U.P. State

Agro Industrial Corporation Limited, Narendra Bhatty, with the opportunity to strike back: Mr. Bhatty hoped, locals say, th

the ensuing fallout would help him win the Lok Sabha seat of which Rabupura is a part in the general elections less th

a year away.

The Uttar Pradesh governments swift instructions to suspend Ms. Nagpal had less, therefore, to do with its perception th

the incident would affect communal harmony than the understanding that by punishing the young SDM the issue would gehighlighted in such a way that the ruling SP would be portrayed as the protectors of the minority community. It would

simultaneously remove from the scene a zealous young officer who, by all accounts, had taken on the sand mafia that

operates across a large swathe of western U.P.

In the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, Mr. Bhatti had stood third polling 16.05 per cent of the votes, behind the Bahujan Samaj

Partys Surendra Singh Nagar (33.24 per cent), and the BJPs Mahesh Kumar Sharma (31.08 per cent). And the Congresss

Ramesh Chandra Tomar had polled 15.73 per cent. If Mr. Bhatty can polarise the votes in the constituency on communal

lines, he could eat into the Muslim votes that both the BSP and the Congress received the last time.

Indeed, the SP appears to be leaving no stone unturned in communalising the issue: senior State Minister Mohammad Aza

Khan a veteran of the now defunct Babri Masjid Action Committee went so far as to dismiss the sand mafia by saying

that everyone had a right to natural resources. Ram naam ki loot hai loot sako to loot *You are allowed to loot in the namof lord Ram+, he said in Rampur on Wednesday, when asked to comment on the issue.

Senior Minister Shivpal Yadav, denying the role of the mining mafia behind Ms. Nagpals suspension, insisted, She was

suspended for demolishing the wall of a mosque at Kadalpur village in the Rabupura area without following the legal

process. His version is that the owner of the land had not objected to the construction of a wall on his land. But when som

persons lodged a false complaint with Ms. Nagpal, she had it demolished, and this led to communal tension.

The version of the locals is that the gram panchayat agreed to the construction of a mosque on government land a few

months ago. Mr. Bhatty had come to the inauguration and even made a monetary contribution. But permission was not

sought from the district magistrate for the construction of the mosque, something that is mandatory before clearing build

plans for any place of worship ever since the Supreme Court passed such a ruling. Ms. Nagpal was, therefore, well within h

rights to pull down the wall, they say, adding that perhaps she could have given notice, as this is the month of Ramzaan.

Now comes the district magistrates report to the government on the incident: it says Ms. Nagpal was asked to visit Kadalp

from where reports of illegal construction activities on government land had come in and to settle the matter amicably. Th

report also suggests it was unclear what religious site it was, since the construction had only just begun. When Ms. Nagpal

and other officers deputed to visit the village arrived there, the villagers were told that they should either seek permission

construction of a religious structure, as per the governing rules, or dismantle the illegally constructed wall. The residents o

the village then chose, the DMs report says, to dismantle the illegal construction of their own volition. No heavy machiner

was ever pressed into service to demolish any wall, as the government has suggested. The report, with inputs from the

district police as well as other administrative officers, also says there was no communal tension or the possibility of any

clashes between religious communities.

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But clearly, Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav appeared on Thursday to be in no mood to accept this report, even though he is

currently up against not just one or two officers, but the entire bureaucracy: after all, it is seldom that the IAS Association

State speaks up for one amongst them, as the U.P. body has done for Ms. Nagpal. If Mr. Yadav is to survive this incident

unscathed, he must demonstrate political acumen and reinstate Ms. Nagpal. This is a case of blatant violation of the law, n

denial of minority rights.

Higgs Boson may unravel dark energy mystery 11th

August 2013The recently discovered Higgs boson could provide a possible portal to physics that may help explain some of the attribu

of the enigmatic dark energy, scientists suggest.

One of the biggest mysteries in contemporary particle physics and cosmology is why dark energy, which is observed to

dominate energy density of the universe, has a remarkably small (but not zero) value, researchers said.

This value is so small, it is perhaps 120 orders of magnitude less than would be expected based on fundamental physics, th

said.

Now, physicists -- Lawrence Krauss of Arizona State University and James Dent of the University of Louisiana-Lafayette --

explore how a possible small coupling between the Higgs particle, and possible new particles likely to be associated with w

is conventionally called the Grand Unified Scale could result in the existence of another background field in nature in addit

to the Higgs field.This would contribute an energy density to empty space of precisely the correct scale to correspond to the observed energ

density, researchers said.

Current observations of the universe show it is expanding at an accelerated rate. But this acceleration cannot be accounte

for on the basis of matter alone, they said.

Putting energy in empty space produces a repulsive gravitational force opposing the attractive force produced by matter,

including the dark matter that is inferred to dominate the mass of essentially all galaxies, but which doesnt interact direct

with light and, therefore, can only be estimated by its gravitational influence.

Because of this phenomenon and what is observed in the universe, it is thought that such dark energy contributes up to 7

per cent of the total energy density in the universe, while observable matter contributes only 2 to 5 per cent, with the

remaining 25 per cent or so coming from dark matter.

The source of this dark energy and the reason its magnitude matches the inferred magnitude of the energy in empty space

not currently understood, making it one of the leading outstanding problems in particle physics today.

Now that the Higgs boson has been discovered, it provides a possible portal to physics at much higher energy scales

through very small possible mixings and couplings to new scalar fields which may operate at these scales, said Krauss.

We demonstrate that the simplest small mixing, related to the ratios of the scale at which electroweak physics operates,

a possible Grand Unified Scale, produces a possible contribution to the vacuum energy today of precisely the correct orde

magnitude to account for the observed dark energy, Krauss said.

The study was published in the journal Physical Review Letters.

Justice as a game of chance 14th August 2013

The quality of mercy, Shakespeare would be disappointed to learn, seems highly strained in India. If Maganlal Barela, a

convict on death row in Jabalpur Central Jail, is still alive, he has a newspaper report that broke the story of his imminent

hanging to thank for the temporary reprieve. Barela was sentenced to death in 2011 by the Madhya Pradesh High Court fo

murdering his five infant daughters, after a heated argument with his wives over property. Last month, President Pranab

Mukherjee rejected Barelas clemency petition nearly 18 months after the Supreme Court turned down his appeal. It is

unclear how long Rashtrapati Bhavan took to decide Barelas fate but within days of it doing so, he was served a black

warrant and readied for the gallows. The alacrity with which the establishment pursued his hanging reflects a disdain for h

constitutional rights. A prisoner on death row is entitled to challenge in the Supreme Court the Presidents rejection of a

mercy petition. It is improbable that Barela had a chance to exercise this right in such a short span of time. In fact, the

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governments attempt to rush his execution seems highly suspect given that it coincides with the Supreme Courts recent

comments calling it out for inordinate delay in deciding mercy petitions.

That it took a newspaper report to alert lawyers and activists to Barelas imminent execution highlights the arbitrary syste

in place to evaluate mercy pleas. The Ministry of Home Affairs is neither required by law to publish a list of pending and

processed mercy petitions nor does it have to disclose the reasons tendered by the President. The Central Information

Commission in July rejected a request by A.G. Perarivalan convicted in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case for those

details. In fact, Rashtrapati Bhavan, which had put up a section devoted to mercy petitions on its website, removed it earlithis year. The ambiguity in this process of dispensing mercy may give the government some room to navigate hot-button

cases as it did with the stealthy execution of Ajmal Kasab and Afzal Guru but it also subjects death row prisoners to a

excruciating wait, undermining their rights. Recognising this sordid state of affairs, the Supreme Court has rightly pressed

ahead with plans to institute a larger bench in October to review mercy pleas rejected afterdelay; Maganlal Barelas will b

one among them. Last week, the Court rejected the governments request to review its decision to commute the death

sentence of M.N. Das, whose mercy plea had been rejected after 11 years. The Court must now favourably receive the ple

of Barela and others who have shuttled between life and death thanks to the executives arbitrary policies.

The rediscovery of India

The country today needs to reinvent itself through the ideals and dreams that drove the Independence movement

Anniversaries chime, mime.

Repeating the sounds and the sentiments of the original event, they are meant to echo. But, mostly, they parody.

Days red-ringed on calendars are like Rose-ringed Parakeets. They please their owners by repeating what they have bee

drilled into doing.

The phrase signifying tedium year in and year out must come from the dull annuities of routine. Anniversaries plac

routine. Repetition palliates nostalgia, packages and pots it.

Potted speeches, even stirring ones, seem put on when replayed to order. Archival photographs, even startling ones, se

to be serving anothers purpose when pulled out from their rest and streamed on todays screens and surfaces.

August 15, for India, is no exception.

Many emotions

Catharsis surrounded that day in 1947. Joy and pain, triumph and tragedy were both in the air, like grey and silver clouds i

astral combat. Ustad Bismillah Khan had played his mesmeric shehnai on the Red Forts great mound minutes before Prim

Minister Nehru, shy of nothing but of the age 60, by two years, sprang to his feet. Chest out, chin up, he freed with

unconcealed elation Indias new flag from its furls of subordination. If there is one word that can describe the mood of tha

day, it is the much-used one about the much-missed spirit idealism.

What would Jawaharlal Nehru have had to say to the nation today, if he stood on the ramparts of the Red Fort? He would

course be speaking in Hindustani with a sprinkling of Urdu words which today could sound archaic, such as sifat (quality),

iman (probity), zamir (conscience). But assuming he were to turn to English, Nehrus 2013 message to the Indian people

might go thus:

Friends and comrades, I have had the great privilege, for it is no less, and the joy, for that is what it has been, to speak to

you from atop these historic walls seventeen times. When I think of the great transactions of time that have taken place h

among these silent stones, such as the stately durbars of Shah Jehan, the petty machinations of Aurangzeb, the trial and

murder of Dara Shikoh, the plunder by Nadir Shah, his loot of the Peacock Throne, the carnage around here during the Gre

war of Independence, Bahadur Shah Zafars pained sacrifice, and in what may be calledour times, the trial of the INAs

brave soldiers, and of the small men who slayed the Father of the Nation, I rather lose my words in my meandering though

But you have not come here today to see me lose my words but, rather, to find them, to find the right words, the right

thoughts, which may give you a sense of the importance of this day, this anniversary.

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I speak to you today not as your Prime Minister but, rather, as one among you. I do not mean to or want to justify any act

of our government. You who see its functioning day after challenging day can do that better than I who am trapped inside

often feel more locked up and caged in government than I did when I was in the jails of the British Raj. And the security

guards around me they of course are only obeying orders stifle me. I often ask myself What is all this for, this

protection, this security, against whom? And then when I think of the man, the one man to who we owe our freedom mo

than to anyone else and how he just walked into three bullets, I feel ashamed of the cordons around me. And when I think

the violence both of the direct kind, and of the invisible, subtle kind that Indias daughters, Indias Dalits and tribals have to

endure at the hands of brutes among her sons, I am again ashamed of the security around me. It is of course a fact thatcertain kinds of men, terrorists, they are often called, want to kill me. I am not afraid of death. I can grapple with any attac

and give him honest blow for blow. But I do not want to oblige some low-time mercenary or idiot wielding a gun!

Money power

We are living amidst terror, hatred, violence, and therefore in fear. There are people who thrive on those, hatred and fea

They have nothing else to them. How did this happen? When, why? I must say to you in all imandari (honesty) that the sty

of our siyasat (politics) has created this and politicians and political parties must take the zimmedari (responsibility) for thi

I do not intend to explain anything which our Parliament might have done or not done, either. We set it up with great arm

(longings), arzu (wishes) and a sense of abru (self-respect). But when I see the way Parliament functions or, perhaps I shou

say, the way it does not function, it fills me with shame. Parliament is accountable before it is Honble. It is obsessed by it

honour when it should be absorbed in its duties.And everywhere, money is King. Not the voter, not the Constitution, but money. When something or someone is King, wh

becomes of the Republic? From the roadside vendor who has to pay a regular mamul in some hundreds of rupees to the g

Corporate that bribes its way to contracts with so many zeroes that I cannot count, we are now become a Jamhuriyat-i-

Naqad, a Republic of Cash.

We have become a soulless people, a people without self-confidence, without morale. A nation that does not have any id

cannot survive. So, is there no hope? Is it all finished? Harghiz nahin, most certainly not. I spoke of the petty machinations

Aurangzeb, of the loot by Nadir Shah. We have modern versions of those amid us. But we also have, amongst us, great sou

inspired by Dara Shikoh and Bahadur Shah. If we have men of the kind who killed our Bapu, we also have great and brave

soldiers of a united India such as Netaji Subhas Bose would have been proud of.

What we need

And so while I am a disappointed man, as disappointed as you, not just in our politics and in our administration but in the

reshe, tar and sut, the very fibre of our nationhood, I also know that the so-called ordinary people of India have an

extraordinary core of values in them, plain human values that make them help each other in distress and in dejection. The

number of courageous Indians who, unfazed by the wrongdoings of so many, continue to fight for justice, for honesty, for

service, is amazing.

With their help, we must reinvent ourselves. We have to go back to where we started, to the roots of our ideals, our drea

That good man, Kamaraj from Madras, you will remember, gave us a plan that we called the Kamaraj Plan. Ministers resign

office in large numbers to go back to the people, to where they came from. That gave us, then, an ehsas (sense) of idealism

of sacrifice and service for Indias greatness. I will say no more except this that India needs to be governed by men and

women, even if they be from outside of Parliament, outside of politics, honest people, idealists, not self-seekers disguised

pragmatists, patriots who are motivated not by power and money but by the ideals of justice and fair-dealing, giving the

nation a leadership that can look us you and me in the eye. As I leave you, I have a request: You have shown me love

you have shown perhaps to no one. But please do not iconize me, do not idolise me, do not make a cult of me. All cults are

wrong, personality cults more than all others. Disagree with me, show me where I err, correct me. I would prefer that you

that than that you follow me unthinkingly. Oxen and sheep do that, not descendants of Asoka and Rajendra Chola, Akbar a

Shivaji.

I now exhort you to say, chest out and chin up, not thrice from hollow lungs but just once like a bellow from your hearts

Jai Hind!