Day: September 20, 2014

By Pradip Phanjoubam
On Thursday Scotland voted “No” to independence from the United Kingdom. In all, close to 56 percent Scots, nearly 85 percent of whose adult voters came out to vote on the day, voted against the motion. While those who wanted the UK to remain united would be celebrating, let nobody also forget that another nearly 45 percent voted “Yes” to separation, and that among those who voted for independence, was Glasgow, Scotland’s largest city. It is unlikely the lesson would be missed by a mature democracy as Britain, and indeed, as the James Cameroon government had pledged before the referendum to persuade Scotland to stay, and then announced after Scotland decided on staying, its intent for the near future professedly would be informed by the new motto “devolution revolution”. Obviously and wisely too, Britain’s polity is set to be further federalised and decentralised in the years ahead.

Astounding is also the fact of the manner in which the issue of secession from an established State was by consensus allowed to be settled non-violently by a referendum of the people, an idea quite unthinkable in so many other conflict theatres around the globe, including our own. The Scotland referendum is not the first of its kind though, another unsuccessful bid by referendum for Quebec to secede from Canada two decades ago in 1995, being the most prominent precedent. In the Quebec referendum, it may be recalled, the “Yes” votes lost by a razor thin margin of about one percent only.

The Scotland development should be a lesson for any multi-lingual, multi-cultural nation or region. The imaginary possibility of India in a similar situation, or on a much smaller canvas, Manipur, would not have been lost to any keen observer of politics here. Indeed, there were many who did ruminate on the issue of Kashmir and to a lesser extent the various insurgencies in the Northeast, against this context, particularly on the absolutely open and free forums provided by the social media. What exactly would happen if Kashmir for instance were allowed to decide its future by a referendum of its people? Would, as in the case of Scotland, the “Pragmatists” who see the benefits of being part of a larger economy, one with the potential of becoming a world power in military terms as well as economy, win the day, or would the “Nationalists” who would rather live by their passions and draw satisfaction from making their own mistakes rather than be under somebody else’s shadow, prevail? What about in other places of
known widespread public dissents such as Nagaland and Manipur? What exactly would be the outcomes of such a referendum?

There were also other interesting terms by which the opposing camps in the Scotland referendum were defined by. For instance, those who preferred to remain with the UK were also referred to as the “Unionists”. For many among the “Unionists” it was not just pragmatism which determined their desire for the UK to remain intact, but a Statist belief that the Union is sanctified by history, and therefore its territory is sacrosanct beyond questioning and must remain indivisible. On the opposing side, there were those who preferred independence, but objected to their being referred to as “Nationalists”, for as they said, they have no enmity with England or harbour any sectarian ethnic passion for Scotland. Scotland of their imagination was and would remain an ethnic mosaic but they just loved to be on their own. Despite the “No” verdict on Thursday, a lot still say if British policies remain unchanged, it would only be time before another referendum on the same issue becomes inevitable.

In India such a situation where the Union of India allows a referendum by which a part of it can secede from it will remain at best in the realm of fantasy. As a former colony and a relatively nascent modern nation, the idea of the indestructibility of the Union as a prerequisite of nationhood is yet too strong in India for anybody to imagine it will compromise its territorial integrity under whatever the pressure or circumstance. Curiously, as some insightful writers have pointed out, before the birth of modern nationalism in India, things could have been very different if the map of India were to be drawn radically different from what it is now. Well known Left intellectual and columnist Ashok Mitra for instance was quick to point out in one of his extremely readable and insightful articles in The Telegraph, Calcutta, that if the British had decided to separate the Northeast region from India even as late as the 1920s or 1930s, it is quite likely the rest of India may not have taken much note.

As an alibi, he pointed out the fact that till as late as 1937, Burma and Ceylon were part of British India, but in that year, the British government decided to put these provinces under separate administrations, although their offices were still to be under the roof of the India Office in London. What is even more interesting is, 1937 was a time when Indian nationalism and consequently the Indian Freedom Struggle were peaking. Yet, few or none of the Nationalists of the time even noticed this change. Such was their attachment to the land in the peripheries. Yet all this would transform at some stage of the Nationalist uprising and crystallise after Independence, and what for the British colonisers were mere territories important for their geopolitical implications, strategic geographical locations and commercial values, would almost overnight metamorphose into “sacred soil of the motherland”. Pondering on this transformation, Gunnar Myrdal wrote of former colonies’ claim to territories thus: “the first and almost instinctive reaction of every new government was to hold fast to the territory bequeathed to it. What the colonial power had ruled, the new state must rule” (quoted in Neville Maxwell’s “India’s China War”).

If this is true, then it would also be reasonable to assume the cognitive endearing image of “Mother India” in popular imagination would have been very different, had for instance the first and second generations of leaders of Independent India drew the Indian map differently. Today, although nearly half of what is shown as Indian Jammu and Kashmir on the Indian map is actually controlled by Pakistan and China, it would be difficult, if not impossible, for Indian leaders today to ask the Indian public to re-imagine “Mother India” differently, with a map that shows Jammu and Kashmir truncated and different what it was always imagined to be. This transformation of colonial territories whose previous importance was only strategic and commercial in nature, into holy soil of the motherland of popular imagination, is little short of mystical indeed.

The same would have been quite true of the Northeast, as Mitra implied in the same article, and quite likely the region may never have come to be in the popularly imagined holy soil of India, had the British colonisers decided on a different political future for the region before independence dawned on India. The region could well have been as Myanmar is today, foreign to India, though once in colonial antiquity, a part of it. As Myanmar is today, probably such a Northeast would have also been beset with endless crippling existential problems of its own. But even today, the Northeast is still to a good measure, alien to the rest of the Indian core. The manner in which the Narendra Modi government atrociously chose to hide Northeasterners from the view of the visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping, among them one of his own Ministers, Kiren Rijiju, an MP from Arunachal Pradesh, is just the most recent evidence of this.

It must be remembered that the referendum question is also a double edged sword and can cut the user as much as his opponent. In Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland… this would be so devastatingly true. If for instance the question of national destiny by referendum becomes a universally accepted norm, and say Manipur begins to demand as a basic right such a referendum to decide its association with India, it would also mean that Manipur would also have to concede to demands within it by various ethnic groups for such a referendum to decide their own future with Manipur. The centrifugal forces which threaten to tear apart established polities would also be in endless concentric circles, especially in multi-ethnic, multi-linguistic societies, where there are endless groups within groups.

Under these circumstances, the Scotland referendum is a big lesson for everybody, not the least Manipur. This lesson is not just about Scotland’s decision this time that there is virtue in unity and partnership with a powerful and rich established State, but also of Britain’s realisation that it has to deepen its federalism in its own enlightened interest. It acknowledged why Scotland’s regional aspiration must be given not just an ear but also substantive support and encouragement. The lesson is also as much for the Centre-State relationship between the Union of India and dissenting elements in Northeast India, as it for intra-State frictions between various ethnic groups in the States, a shared reality of almost all Northeast States.

Much has been said of the larger canvas in which various insurgent groups fighting the Union of India for secession from the Union, and I will not go any further into it from what I have already said or implied so far. Instead, let me probe a little more into the Manipur canvas, and the frictions within, in particular the Hills-Valley divide, which nobody will doubt have grown to be of grave threat to the State’s peace of mind, and indeed existence. The Scotland answer in this case too, I would argue, is deeper federalism and greater devolution.

For largely geographical reasons, there is a wide disparity in development between the hills and valley, and this problem must be addressed in earnest if justice and peace is the goal. In this disparity, I would stick to the geographical explanation primarily, though there are so many allegations of exploitation of the hills by the valley through history. In history, the only economic surplus that could have fuelled State formation would have happened in the valley after wet agriculture was discovered and began to be practiced widely in the fertile riverine valley (James Scott vouches on the evolution of such Paddy States in Zomia).  What could these Paddy States have exploited from the subsistent sparse hill villages, living on unproductive shift cultivation and hunting-gathering, other than corvee labour (Scott again)? If systematic exploitation did happen as alleged, it would have been only after the onset of modern planned economy after Indian Independence. We also all know, during this period, the levers of State power have not always been with the valley. Otherwise, even today, what is there for the valley to exploit of the hills?

Let history be history. The question is what now? To recall the answer provided by the Scotland lesson, it is further federalisation and decentralisation. The demand for the introduction of the provisions of the 6th Schedule of the Indian Constitution must be given a more serious thought. But if this provision were to be brought in, let it not be in its unedited version where it would become applicable to only the hill districts. Let it be remodelled so it can become applicable to the whole State. Or else, the hill districts can have the 6th Schedule and the valley districts can have a similar system even if the 6th Schedule itself becomes non-applicable. The Indian Constitution is flexible and can always be amended to ensure this. This is how the Gurkhaland Council or the Bodoland Territorial Council became possible.

The philosophy must be for everybody to prosper. The hill districts which have lagged behind must be given the opportunity to catch up even if this means according them positive discrimination. It must however be remembered the valley also suffers from its own insecurities such as loss of land to settlers, demographic and economic marginalisation, a mentality of being at the losing end of the Indian constitution as demonstrated by demands from sections of the Meiteis for listing of the Meiteis in the 5th Schedule of recognized Indian tribes etc. This growing anxiety of the valley community too needs to be addressed. What must not be forgotten is the saying that a chain is as strong as its weakest link. In other words, felt injustice by any one of the stake holders in the ethnic mosaic of Manipur can derail any peace project.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2014/09/lessons-for-northeast-from-the-scotland-referendum/

B.G. Verghese

 
It has been a turbulent week of war and peace. The Chinese President’s visit was the highlight with peace being talked even as a mini-war was being waged in Ladakh, eyeball to eyeball, following Chinese objections to construction of a small irrigation work near Demchok. Twelve trade and investment agreements were signed and the Chinese offered $ 20 bn worth of investments in five years to correct the present trade imbalance.

Yet, the Ahmedabad Mirror reported that Northeasterers on the staff of the Hyatt Hotel were kept out of sight so as not to offend the Chinese guests. If true, this would be a sad self-goal and a rude slap in the face our Northeastern citizens.

Prime Minister Modi, however, did well to tell President Xi that while trade and other exchanges were most desirable, no real progress and lasting friendship was possible without speedy settlement of the boundary issue. Three specific issues were mentioned: defining the LAC t ensure peace, with demarcation to follow; avoidance of stapled visas, and water sharing. Water-sharing is not areal issue as China’s ability to divert waters from India is modest. The real water issue lies in managing climate change, which was apparently not discussed. Both sides have much to gain from such cooperation.

As far as the border is concerned, the Chinese have since 1954 maintained the ambiguous position that matters will be settled when the time is ripe. Thus even when a section of the LAC is mutually determined, the Chinese are unwilling to demarcate it and exchange maps so that even what is can and has been unsettled by innocent or not so innocent trespass. India must insist on firm ground rules here.

Mr Modi did not address the media during or after the visit. He has studiously avoided speaking to the media since taking office. But all of a sudden he is to come alive in a “world exclusive” interview with CNN on the eve of his U.S-UN visit. This seems more an exercise in self-publicity than in communication, in which he blandly suggests  that Muslims in India are absolutely safe even while the BJP and Parivar have tirelessly indulged in an unrestrained campaign of slander, lies, dire threats and the most infamous calumny against them. This will not wash unless and until he takes action against some of his leading lights for criminal incitement, hate-mongering and propagating downright lies.

The recent by-election results in which the BJP lost 13 of 23 seats spread over 33 constituencies In nine states is indicative of growing public disenchantment with the blatant electoral politics of hate and polarisation that the BJP banked upon. It suffered in U.P and Rajasthan in particular.

The BJP leader in Bihar openly declared that if Yogi Adityanath spoke in Bihar as he did in U.P. he would have been promptly contradicted.

Adityanath’s rants apart, recall what some others said. Amit Shah, the BJP president declared that if Patel, not Nehru, had been “in charge” of Kashmir, the entire state would have come to India and there would have been no need for Article 370. This combines a high order of constitutional ignorance with historical illiteracy and a false pitting of Patel against Nehru in a new game of personality polarisation. Sakshi Maharaj, BJP MP, next alleged that madrasas are imparting instruction in terror and love-jihads. They do not hoist the national flag and Muslim MPs avoid functions where the national anthem is sung. The BJP disowned  these outrageous statements as the personal views of the MP who, however, remains in good standing.

Then it was left to Maneka Gandhi, Minister for Women and Child Development, to claim that profits made from animal (read cow) slaughter are going to fund terrorism. This again is sheer rubbish and also betrays ignorance of the trade. The plain fact is that the bulk ofcattle sold for slaughter are non-milch buffaloes and are disposed of by Hindus who cannot afford to keep dry and decrepit animals. Mechanisation of tillage and haulage has also reduced the demand for draft animals. Rather than acknowledge the facts and permit culling and rendering of animals and sales of processed beef, people are driven to illicit sales of cattle across the border to Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh. Most gaushalas are a rackets of bogus piety and serve no purpose.

That apart, millions of “holy cows” roam the streets and forests and do much damage to the ecology.

In Madhya Pradesh, a BJP MLA, Usha Thakur, asked her followers to keep Muslims out of the Garba festival to prevent Hindu girls from being trapped in love-jihad. These are demented minds that would convert beautiful national festivals that bind our diversity into occasions to preach hatred and divide communities.

No wonder the National Minorities Commission has written to the Home Minister “to restrain people in responsible positions from making irresponsible statements” An earlier resolution by the Commission was ignored. Modi-Sarkar does not care and has said or done nothing for months to stop this monstrous Hindutva hate jihad. And is this the man who is telling the world in an “exclusive interview” with CNN that Muslims need have no worry? Statesmanship or humbug!!

Were this not enough we have witnessed the arrogance of power in play. Ajit Singh, former Minister, has refused to vacate his bungalow despite repeated reminders,  like several other defiant ministers, MPs, and bureaucrats. He wants the bungalow converted  into a memorial commemorating his father, Charan Singh. The Nehru-Gandhi example of endless land-grab for family memorials has created a terrible example. The Indira Gandhi National Centre for Culture and  Art in the prime heart of Delhi represents the acme of land grab and the most extravagant use of space that it must disgorge to accommodate other cultural institutions.

The answer to Ajit Sigh and all similar defaulters is that their household goods should be dumped on the road and auctioned and all arrears and costs be met therefore. Protest should be met with arrest and a month’s imprisonment. Do this just once under law and the nonsense will end.

Then there is Hema Malini telling the tragic widows of Brindavan, mostly from Bengal and Bihar,  not to crowd the place but remain in their home states. What impertinence from a woman who  embraced Islam temporarily to marry after her partner-to-be secured talaq. What has she or the  Parivar done to end the terrible plight of widows who are as yet unable to break the cruel taboo  against widow remarriage, though abolished by law. These medieval bigots are the dregs of Hindu society.

Meanwhile we have Yasin Malik forcibly stealing a boat-load of rations for Srinagar’s flood affected  to divert to his partisans in order to claim credit for looking after their welfare even while protesting the state’s alleged  indifference and incompetence in rescue and relief operations. These separatist scoundrels have pelted stones at the Army and Air Force rescue teams. They deserve to be horse-whipped and locked away.

www.bgverghese.com

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2014/09/making-war-talking-peace/

By Chitra Ahanthem

As the days go by and turn into weeks and months and then years, I get more and more convinced that despite all the advancement in technology and communication thanks to which we have roads and means of transport and various mediums of talking/interacting with one other, nothing matters in the long run for we have not learnt one basic thing: tolerance. Even as all the progress in the technology and communication sector has put us in touch with one another, we seem to be losing the art of really communicating with one another, the art of respecting someone’s opinion and giving room to that opinion no matter how different that may be from the one we hold ourselves; the art of thinking through things before we react.

My writings have lately focused on how online hate and abuse has become the order of the day on various social networking sites with opinions being hurled left, right and center. But much before I got into social networking sites, I was subject to great online scrutiny on a popular website that carries feeds from Imphal Free Press. Whenever I was seen as ‘stepping out of line’ (which ranged from my writing about my love for Hindi films to questioning why most of us in the region react to rape of our own but not to rape as such), there would be constant snide attacks on my mental equilibrium, how I needed to be ‘reined in’ and what type of woman I was. I was even told that there was a discussion where some online comments said I ought to be banned from writing. Looking back on those times, I can say that phase was easy. I could choose to be disconnected from all the abuse and I did just that, continuing to write what I felt about things and incidents and not really looking at what people commented on. But with social networking sites that I am a part of, the abuse that I face now is much more up front and personal.

I distinctly remember an editorial that I wrote on the Mary Kom movie that talked more of the Hindi film ban in the state, how actors from the state are barred from acting in Hindi films but the mere mention of three lines (“There have been many voices questioning the casting Priyanka Chopra instead of someone from the region whose looks would be more in line with the way the diminutive Olympian looks like. But those who follow the business of cinema will know that producers and film makers alike put in their finances and efforts behind what are known as bankable actors and those whose association with a venture will bring in better returns. This is true not just for the Hindi film industry but also in other film scenarios across the world”) evoked a ‘you are too biased to write an editorial’ to a series of response that hinted at my intellectual inefficacy to see things as they are on one social networking profile. I was in a sense, under attack for not seeing the ‘racial undertones’ of the film etc etc because of its casting of a non mongoloid Priyanka Chopra as Mary Kom.

When one popular web portal asked me to write a piece on the ‘alleged’ incident of staff of the NE region being asked to stay away while the Chinese Premier was a guest in this many starred hotel, there was a remark that those who were fine with the Mary Kom film had no business talking or questioning how the Government was being insensitive and discriminating in its clamor to placate its powerful visitor. I use the word ‘alleged’ in quote un-quote fashion here because a major newspaper reported the incident quoting police sources and hotel management and top police officials refusing to comment. Someone I do not know and who is not from the region has written on another social networking profile of mine that a hotel spokesperson has refuted the said story and that my writing was total innuendo, remaining blind to the fact that after the many condemnations to the said incident (and happily, not just condemnation from folks in the NE region but beyond), no service/agency would ever own up to what transpired.

End-point:

As for the Mary Kom film: I don’t know about others but my reading of the Hindi film industry is that it is not really known for its aesthetic sense or its sensitivity. Its only allegiance is to the box office returns and what is known as ‘formula fare’. A more deeper study would be required on the subject but I can well stick my neck out and say that the ‘minority’ (which can be religious, linguistic, regional, caste et el) have mostly been sidelined as mere caricatures in Hindi films: just look at how Nepalis are sidelined as watchmen and security guards or how Muslims are often the ‘baddies’. That obsession with box office returns is all that it matters and that is the only cardinal truth for the Hindi film scene-which is why formula films reign on the basis of ‘star power’ and cock a snook at cinematic aesthetics or sensibility. And as to why I bristle over a MoS in Modi’s Cabinet being asked to stay away from the official banquet for the Chinese Premier because he was from Arunachal Pradesh, a place that is contested by the visiting man’s Government and not the film; there is a huge chasm between an elected Government representative being shoed away, from a film that has prosthetics and far too much veering away from the way things are in the state in the life of Mary Kom.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2014/09/of-this-that-and-some-more/

By M.C. Linthoingambee

 
Patent is one of the major forms of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) used in the pharmaceutical industry. Grant of patent in India is governed under the Patents Act, 1970.Significant changes like provision of product patents and increase in the term of patent to 20 years were introduced in the Indian patent law, after India signed TRIPS agreement in 1995. This review provides a brief overview of development of patent law in India as a consequence of the TRIPS agreement. Criteria of patentability and different types of pharmaceutical patents currently being granted in India are described with the aim to provide the fundamental knowledge of pharmaceutical patenting to the researchers.

India has one of the largest standing pharmaceutical industries in the world with the world market providing huge turnovers. As far as pharmaceutical products were concerned, over a period almost 85 per cent of medicines were supplied by multi-national corporations. Kefauver Committee of USA which deliberated extensively on the availability of medicines worldwide and the role of the multi-nationals pointed out in their report that the prices of antibiotics and other medicines in India were the highest in the world. The Indian people were virtually fleeced on the availability and affordability of medicines. Dr. Yusuf K Hamied, Chairman and Managing Director of Cipla Limited and a leading scientist in his recent Paper ‘Trading in Death’ has made strong observations on the new Indian Patent Law keeping the critical health scenario in India in view: “The truth is that health in India is in a permanent and perpetual crisis. The disease profile is as follows : 80 million cardiac patients, 80 million afflicted with mental illness, 60 million diabetics, 50 million asthmatics, 50 million hepatitis B cases, and one in three Indians is a latent carrier of TB. The World Bank has said that India will have 35 million HIV cases by 2015, or approximately half of all the AIDS cases in the world. Given these facts, the patent regime in this country should be devised so that the utmost priority is granted to securing the people’s rights of access to affordable and quality healthcare, without monopoly”.

Furthermore, more than half a million people in the world are unable to afford medicines. The severity of the price has increased and needs immediate attention. India being one of the largest developers of generic version of drugs has helped in exporting a series of drug to help treat patients in developing and underdeveloped countries. Several organizations like: Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Indian Red Cross Society, etc. has volunteered to supply medicines free of cost to patients dealing with the stress of unaffordable prices. The growing need for medicines is felt everywhere – Medicines guarantee much more than they are meant for. The growing increase in Research and Development has helped developed drugs which could treat a varied number of diseases and volatile epidemics. The Patent Law has helped guarantee a safe regime to give certain rights to large pharmaceutical companies to register the drug at their monopoly for a particular time after which the drug enters a public domain giving rights for various local pharmaceuticals to develop a generic version of the same drug. The patent system should be thought of as ?a carefully crafted bargain that encourages both the creation and the public disclosure of new and useful advances in technology, in return for an exclusive monopoly for a limited period of time. Patent law here gives the public client sufficient incentive to create and innovate, at the while ensuring that the public have access to the fruits of their endeavors. This clearly demonstrates how patent law can serve public interest. The public interest about the affordability of patent filing have been protected to a great extent which otherwise would have made the innovations lost.

Most of us are even unaware of this setback. There are less number of certified pharmacist who are qualified to selling medicines in the first place who had not obtained due license from the probable authorities. For every time we buy a medicine for a common cold, headache, etc we are not bothered to ask about its values and terms. But this ignorance has led to more payments and the lost of the local market flourishing in guaranteeing public health to the citizens of its own country. With the exception of a few, most Indian pharmaceutical companies are unfamiliar with the nuances of complex patent prosecution strategies. Research-based pharmaceutical companies, on the other hand, have firsthand knowledge of successfully designing and implementing, sophisticated patent prosecution strategies. Therefore, the first hurdle for the Indian pharmaceutical industry is unevenness in the domain knowledge on patents. One of the ways to overcome this is to learn the use of patents as a business tool.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2014/09/patent-and-the-price/