Which Language?

After the fiasco at the swearing in ceremony about the use of Hindi or English or Marathi, our media (as usual) went berserk and there were endless debates. Most of them revolved around which language is most suitable for us. Should our children learn Marathi or Hindi? Or should we all just switch to English as it's the one that's understood and used globally. And then there were protests against this which said that we are all 'Indians' (laughable) and that our own languages must take precedence.

And as I was hearing these debates, I was wondering why this was a topic that was even being discussed. Why should children be taught either one or the other? Why not all three (as we used to) or four, five or six? We had a Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao who was a polyglot and could read, write and speak 13 different national and international languages. At one time this used to be a great thing. Knowing multiple languages was a sign of great intellect. When did we deteriorate to a point where we chose to teach our children 1 language as a matter of cultural pride?

For that matter, at one time being secular and inclusive was the way to be and such people were respected too. Look where that's gone today so I suppose language being victimised is a small matter and is to be expected.

Do we need this?

The past few months have been tumultuous for the world but especially for our city. We have witnessed attacks against 'outsiders', gone through 2 elections, wondered about whether we really need a 350 crore statue or better infrastructure, endured a spate of festivals, besides struggling through everyday life in our metro (the name of which is still a topic worth debating about apparently)..

The one thing that bothers me especially is the growing polarisation amongst communities. As a civilisation, we have a history of discrimination but this is now going beyond all bounds. The recent attacks on north-indians and the politicisation of infrastructure issues to create resentment against poor hardworking people is the sort of low that is expected of politicians but one hopes that the people of our country are by now wise to these gimmicks and that they will not allow themselves to be affected by these. This, however, does not seem to be the case. Even educated and intelligent people are falling prey to these hate speeches and are adopting these as their own philosophy.

I know of a number of people who hate chennai as a city as no one there speaks any language other than Tamil (my experience of the city is wonderful), and yet they insist on doing the same here by not speaking in any language other than marathi and trying to justify it by quoting Chennai as an example. Is this really justifiable? Are you not practising the same principles that you profess to hate? (On an aside, the whole issue about names of cities is really funny too because while the rest of the world calls it chennai, the people who actually live there still refer to it as Madras.)

I remember when these attacks on poor north-indians were happening, a lot of labourers left sites and fled. No local people came up to claim these jobs or to earn wages by working as the labour class. Sites were empty, construction was delayed in a number of projects, there were fewer taxis on the roads, factories in pune and nasik faced big problems with meeting deadlines on orders and suffered losses due to non-delivery of goods in time. The strangest thing was that these factories, taxis, construction companies belonged to local maharashtrians. So really, it didn't matter who suffered so long as the party got mileage and yet no one saw through this.

At that time, it was a crime to be north-indian.. or any outsider for that matter. There was groupism within companies where locals formed one group and the outsiders formed another and there was an air of suspicion and resentment for the other. Did we need this? But if you ask any maharashtrian what they feel about this, you get very guarded answers about how it is unfair and that the city belongs to all but at the same time interests of locals must also be taken care of.. How?? is what I ask. Why can they not appear for the same competitive exams and excel at them? Why can they not hone their skills as carpenters and take up work on sites? Why can't they study and work hard and become leaders in their field as so many of their counterparts have done? How can one local rise to the seniormost position in Citibank but the rest want it handed on a platter? What will happen to merit and excellence? Are we not heading towards mediocrity? One only values what one has to work hard to get.

There is a very good article by Anil Dharker in Times of India dated October 18, 2009. In that he says that this city is a place where people come to make money and those who are willing to work hard at it will make it while those who wait for it to fall into their lap will.. well.. wait. That's about the gist of it. I wish we'd learn this lesson soon so as to lessen the damage we inflict upon ourselves.

The surprising thing is that in older times there was discrimination between the four castes where the fourth caste was untouchable. Then, we had other religions come in and we united against them and it became a fight of Hindus against Muslims and Christians. Then came the British and we all united as one against them to form one India demanding independence. Once we achieved that, we went right back to fighting each other.. first it was hindus against muslims, then it was based on territory, and today it has come down to Brahmin fighting Brahmin based on the language they speak.. one ganesh mandal fighting against the other mandal (for what i do not know.. maybe it's about who plays the loudest music or who gets the most followers or collects the bigger donation or gets the bigger idol.). I'm beginning to think we're looking for excuses for violence. Maybe it's the pent-up frustration that comes as part of living with the constant stress of the city.. but do we need this. Is it not upto us to create a better environment for ourselves?

I remember the time when, as children, we would celebrate all festivals. Be it holi, diwali, navratri, dassehra, baisakhi, basant, christmas or eid... every festival was enjoyed with equal fervour. We would celebrate christmas in school and visit friends' homes and eat sweets. On eid all our neighbours would bring sevaiah and biryani (made veg especially for hindu neighbours) and on holi we would all come together to soak each other with colour. On navratri we all played the garba and dandiya and on Diwali we all exchanged sweets and lit diyas together. Not many knew about the sikh festivals like baisakhi or lodhi but there was no resentment about it. If someone asked, we explained.. if they didn't we celebrated it anyway. No one said that 'you didn't participate in my festival, so I'm not sharing yours'. It was a wonderful childhood and has helped bring us up with not only a healthy respect but also love for all religions, castes, gender, you name it.

Today, it seems to be the exact opposite. We don't want outsiders in the city.. not only that; we also don't want them in the same building. There are exclusive housing colonies for communities. The courts condone this as well. It's unbelievable. How, then, are we justified in condemning attacks on Indians in Australia? They are doing to outsiders what we are doing to our own people. Are we not going there and taking away their jobs? Have we not taken away jobs of number of Americans through our BPO industry. Are they not right in resenting us and demanding job protection? Why are we so hypocritical? Why does logic not figure anywhere in our thought process? I recall a mail about this which talked about how technology for communication has improved but inclination has declined.

Today, we also don't have time for anything or anyone else. In earlier times, and I'm talking about the pre-globalisation era, everyone was happy. No one was super-rich and no one was super-busy. Today corporates decide that a person will get 10 holidays in a year of which 4 or 5 will be fixed holidays which are usually the standard independence and republic day and Gandhi Jayanti type of holidays. The rest of the holidays which are associated with religious festivals are optional holidays which one can take if it is a festival of one's own religion. So what ends up happening is that all muslims celebrate eid together and all hindus celebrate ganesh chaturthi and diwali. This itself causes polarisation of communities.

Do we really need this? Why do we allow others to take over our minds?

I wonder why we are all forgetting what it is like to live life.. Not to endure it and struggle through every day but live it to the fullest with love, laughter, warmth and inclusiveness. It is not difficult. All it needs is a change in the mindset and soon the Bihari who is usurping jobs will not seem like a threat but will be the inspiration to work hard even if it means moving out of the comfort zone, leaving your family behind and seeking new horizons. We find this inspiration in ants but fail to see it in our fellow men. Let us use language for what it is.. a means of communication. Not as a tool for hatred.

Back again

This is my first post since January this year.. After the spurt of emotion post 26/11 (a term i'm using simply because it's well-understood.. ) I had subsided into my own shell..

As Vivek had rightly stated in a comment in one of the previous posts.. we will all raise a hue and cry for a little while, sometimes for a short time, maybe for a little longer.. but we will all get back to our world and will not bother beyond a point..

I'm not sure if that's the reason why I haven't written. It may be part of the reason but at the same time, there was so much happening that it all became too overwhelming. When one is writing about social issues one tends to notice things very minutely and it becomes a disturbing obsession, being critical of everyone and everything. I think I had fallen into that mode and needed to get out of it to look at everything more objectively.

The long break has not stopped me from observing but has allowed me to stop and think and then decide how I feel about it and form an opinion after serious deliberation instead of rushing out and posting a commentary about it.

I hope whatever I write will come across as such..

Too drastic?

The slowdown is a reality now and, in fact, it has already seeped in so much that it now feels like this is the way it's been.

In India, while we've been affected too, the situation is perhaps not as bad as it is in the US. I was reading about the high percentage of foreclosures in some US cities and the figures are shocking.

I think that perhaps part of the problem was the hasty reaction to the sub-prime crisis. It may have helped to take a little time to judge the situation and to react in a more controlled manner.

That was the point when the aid ought to have come in. What they have achieved in their haste to correct mistakes is a bigger problem.

The way in which the foreclosures happened without taking a balanced view has resulted in millions of people being rendered homeless which in turn left thousands of homes empty, prices crashed as a result as there are no takers for these houses and as these troubles compound, the crime will shoot up and the economy will be even more badly affected.

I think what ought to have happened was that they should have frozen things in place and gone over the list one by one to judge who is capable of paying back the loans if not over 10 yrs then 15 but at least the money would come. At the same time, people would have had a roof over their head and prices would not have been affected too drastically. And over time they could have identified the people who were sure-fire defaulters and would have been able to control the consequences.

This may be a simplistic lay-person view (as I have been told it is) but it makes perfect sense to me.

Media views

A few days back, Mahesh uncle posted the following article on a website: http://www.thehoot.org/web/home/story.php?storyid=3578&mod=1&pg=1&sectionId=14&valid=true

The story has a link to another article published in the DNA.. http://epaper.dnaindia.com/epapermain.aspx?edorsup=Main&queryed=9&querypage=10&boxid=31379090&parentid=83659&eddate=01/08/2009)

Both these articles question the kind of journalism we're seeing today and they both express the anguish and disappointment of serious journalists with the present-day scenario.

It's a valid point they're making and one fails to understand why this is not obvious to the news channels. At least the newspapers show some semblance of reporting impartially. The TV channels all seem to have thrown away the basic code of ethics and are only interested in TRPs. 'TIMES NOW' and Arnab Goswami are very patriotic but not good journalists. That is the channel which has given new definition to arbitrary discussion and are beyond rude when they are engaging in discussion with Pakistani guests or any guests who disagree with their views. It's come to a point where one does not want to watch a discussion as nothing sensible or concrete is coming out of it. As soon as someone from Pakistan makes a valid point, he is cut off and the discussion is taken on a tangent which is not relevant to the ongoing debate.

The newspapers too are not far behind though. Recently, there was a headline 'Sri Lanka agrees to hand over Prabhakaran' while the story actually said that the Sri Lankan government has said that they will consider India's request to hand over the LTTE chief if he's caught. The headline says one thing, while the story says something different altogether.. and in case Sri Lanka refuses to hand over the man at a later date, the same people will raise a hue and cry saying that Sri Lanka has gone back on it's word when, in fact, they have not committed to anything in the first place.

The other recent high (or low) point was when the media raised a hue and cry about the Pakistani Prime Minister's statement in their parliament where he stated that India has handed over information, not evidence. I may be wrong but perhaps the media misinterpreted the statement (which was a part of an internal discussion and not an official response to India). Perhaps the Pak PM meant that India has handed over information related to the attacks and not physical evidence and that based on the information provided, they would conduct their own internal investigation and that's why it was stated that the information provided by India would be handed over to the Interior Ministry. Arnab Goswami cried himself hoarse in all debates decrying the use of the word 'information'.

Every statement made by any diplomat that does not subscribe to the predetermined views of the news channels is rejected as being anti-India. The British foreign secretary recently stated that while he agrees with the part about the terror attacks having originated from Pakistan, he does not agree that the state was involved or that the terrorists should be handed over to India. He felt that they could be tried in Pakistan and it would amount to the same thing. The point is that the perpetrators be brought to justice. To this, the news headlines on most channels said 'Miliband contradicts India'.

Thankfully, today, NDTV carried a programme on NDTV 24x7 'In conversation with Miliband', where the man got a chance to clarify his stand and to everyone's surprise, he made some very interesting and valid points.

• He said that the reason he asked that the terrorists be tried in Pakistan was because he felt that the world ought to show some faith in the new democratic government in Pakistan and allow them time to take action against the perpetrators. He felt that the stress should be on the fact that the terrorists be tried and punished and that terror camps be dismantled; it does not matter if it happens in India or in Pakistan. In the face of such logic, the demands being made by India seem to be more to assert its might over Pakistan than to genuinely ensure that terror is removed.
• The second point he made was about India's decision to snap ties with Pakistan and our efforts to block aid to Pakistan. While I, as an Indian, am all for it, simply because my patriotism demands that some immediate, aggressive and forceful action be taken against Pakistan, I think that if we saw the same situation from a third party perspective, we would agree with Mr. Miliband. He said that he thinks it will be in India's interest if the Pakistan economy does better. He felt that in the long run, having a prosperous neighbour will automatically insure India. He quoted an African saying; 'if your neighbour's house is on fire, it's in your own interest to help douse the fire, lest your own house get burnt next'. I know the immediate thought that comes to anyone on hearing or reading this is that one cannot help Pakistan simply because they won't let us help... but i'm sure if we try, we'll find a way. The same, of course, holds true for Pakistan as well.

This story by NDTV was a refreshing change where a diplomat was allowed to state his views without being interrupted or ridiculed. I wish the other news channels would follow this example; they'll find that they'll soon get a wider and more serious audience.

I think there's a lesson here not only for the media but for all of us as well. We all harp on the right to free speech but do we allow or accept views that are contrary to our own?

Sometimes our views become very narrow because of all the noise within our own head. It helps to open up the mind and listen to a third voice. It's time we learnt to listen to a few home-truths about ourselves.

The other thing, and I digress here from the original subject, is that while the media and the Indian government are demanding that the world take a firm stand against Pakistan, no one in this country is willing to take a stand on the situation between Israel and Palestine. There's full-scale war happening in the region and hundreds of people are dying, including children. The Indian government made one half-hearted formal statement saying that they condemned Israel's disproportionate use of force against the Palestinians but nothing beyond that. The media also gives it the customary 2-bit slot in the news and then goes back to focus on Pakistan. The situation in Israel is far more critical to the world but we are stuck in our own misery and crying for attention. Are we at all concerned about anyone but ourselves? And if we have our diplomatic compulsions, does the rest of the world not have its own?

There were protests in Srinagar against Israel's attack but none of the news channels thought they were worthy of being covered. The same protests were covered by the BBC and the CNN. Can we even now say that we are not ignoring the point of view of the Kashmiri people? Where is the free-and-fair journalism?

There is wide-spread concern and criticism on the government move to review and restrict the news being telecast on news channels. I agree that this is a dangerous situation and that this must be condemned and challenged to ensure free press but, on the other hand, I wonder if at some level this has become important.

Perhaps there is a mid-path to this. I think the solution would be to appoint a committee that can impose a short-term ban on a channel that violates certain guidelines laid down by the Press Council and the recommendations for such a short-term ban can come directly from the Council as well. The one thing that this will achieve will be to make the viewer aware of which news channels or papers are violating the rules and guidelines.

Free speech and free journalism come with a huge set of responsibilities. We have to find some way to remind the media of that.

Who's doing the thinking?

After the 26/11 incident, everyone has been accusing the intelligence agencies of not sharing information or not acting on available intelligence.

I must say they are not the only ones. Any and all agencies seem to be suffering the same problem.

The B.M.C. and the MMRDA to begin with..

I'm assuming that the people who work in these agencies are people who live in mumbai and if one lives in the city, it is not very difficult to take a birds-eye view of what action will impact what and what will be the consequences especially where development work of roads, etc. is concerned.

There are only 3 main roads running within the city. One which runs along the western line, one central and the other along the harbour train route. The roads along the central line and the harbour line run pretty close to each other and are almost parallel so it would not be very difficult to imagine that if work has to be carried out on one road, the other must be kept open so that traffic can move along smoothly and people are not inconvenienced. While this may be in-your-face obvious to any ordinary person, such simple concepts appear to be beyond the grasp of the people running the above-mentioned agencies.

They insist on carrying out work on both roads at the same time leading to traffic congestion throughout the day and making travel a bigger nightmare for people than it already is. To add to it, while carrying out work on the flyover near the zoo, a water pipeline burst yesterday causing an even more problematic situation. The road was flooded like it was the middle of monsoon.

Who's doing the thinking there? Where is the alternative strategy plan in case of such an occurence. The strategy plan put into effect yesterday was to get the cars to move single-file on a 4-lane road.

And our political parties are not far behind. They have either not understood the mood of the citizenry or choose to ignore it.

The most ridiculous statement came recently when the SP introduced Sanjay Dutt as their Lok Sabha candidate from... hold your breath... Lucknow!!

a) The man has been convicted and sentenced for 6 years and whether he has committed the crime or not, it has been proven in a court of law and he has been found guilty. Even after all the hue and cry by citizenry demanding that political parties put up worthy candidates this time around so that finally we can all bring the focus back to nation development and security, they do this... and of course, since he's a film star and 'such a nice guy' (as the media describes him) not one citizen has raised his/her voice in protest. I hope that at least the Election Commission uses better judgement and disqualifies him.
b) The bigger absurdity is to get him to contest from Lucknow. Has the man even seen Lucknow?! Is he going to move to Lucknow and settle down there to ensure that he does the work that he is required to do as an MP? I think not. So why should he be put up as a candidate there?
c) Does he have any background in politics, governance or development work? So what qualifies him to be a candidate for elections which choose representatives to run the country?

And the latest news item in today's paper is that the SP has said that if Sanjay Dutt is disqualified, they will get his wife to contest the election. What is happening here?!!

These are questions that are applicable for all candidates. The poor guy has become an example in this write-up but even he should think about these questions before either he or his wife accept.

I don't know who is doing the thinking but someone had better start..

Delayed Justice

In response to the post 'Fair Trial', Mahesh uncle wrote in saying that "... A delayed judgement, based on fact, procedures and wisdom is of little consequence to the victim... " (Link below)

http://meghna-perspectives.blogspot.com/2009/01/fair-trial.html#comments

Another example of delayed justice can be seen in the Bombay High Court’s judgement lifting the ban on the film ‘Deshdrohi’ which was banned in Maharshtra for 60 days on November 12, 2008, based on a report submitted by DIG Rashmi Shukla which said that film would lead to further tension in the state which was at the time witnessing riots against north-indians.

The court lifted the ban saying that the State cannot transgress the fundamental rights of citizens because of its inability to control situations. One of the judges also stated that it is important in a time, when we are vulnerable to violence from outside the nation, to reaffirm commitment to our core values.

This is wonderful and I’m glad that at least the judiciary is displaying a sense of right and wrong and is taking steps to correct the wrong being enforced. The same judiciary, however, lets the person who is at the root cause of all the tension, roam free… and that too based on the language of the speech which is worded such that it can’t be held against him. Maybe I’m dense, but what is so obvious to the whole world cannot be dismissed. It doesn’t matter what language is used; what matters is the purpose and the outcome. It’s high time we stop allowing injustice to go unpunished based on technicalities.

Anyway, coming back to the point of delayed justice, it is interesting to note that the ban was imposed on November 12, 2008 for 60 days and the judgement for lifting the ban has been delivered on January 9, 2009; exactly 58 days from the date of the ban.

- Is the judgement even relevant now considering that the ban was for 60 days to begin with?
- Does it take that long to see a movie and decide if it will lead to tension or not? The DIG saw it once and decided against it.
- I don’t know but perhaps the judiciary shares the views of the state and decided that it would be safer to play out the time frame in giving the judgement and then claim to uphold the rights of the citizens.

In any case, as the bench itself noted, the film was released in other states and the DVDs of the film have been available all over without a single incident having occurred. So it is most certainly not a question of people being incited; it’s more a question of political parties staging such incidents to gain political mileage (which they won’t.. but..). It’s time the judiciary and the security forces get their act together and ensure a safe, secure, peaceful and fair living environment to the citizens.

I’m not a fan of the actor-director of ‘Deshdrohi’ nor am I going to watch the movie. I do believe, however, that as a citizen his rights have been curtailed and that we must all realise that tomorrow it could be one of us.. and soon it may be all of us.

Conscience

A few days ago I wrote the following post on a blog called PositiveBloc.

The safest course is to do nothing against one's conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear from death.- Voltaire

And the first step would be to listen to what our conscience has to say...

And on the same blog, there is another article titled Tightroping life with 'Conscious Balance' which has a part that talks about life’s situations and our reactions to them based on
* our knowledge and our interpretation of it and
* our life’s experiences and how they mould our thinking and our reactions

and that got me thinking..

Is conscience universally the same? When I quoted Voltaire and said that the first step would be to listen to what our conscience says.. did I know what I was talking about? Does everyone’s conscience tell them the same thing? Is there a universal right? A terrorist has no fear of death. Does that mean that he has been following his conscience?

I have no answers to these questions but they are extensions, in some way, of a question that I have always wondered about… do we all see the same things?

As a child, I used to wonder that we all have eyes but when we look, do we see the same object, the same colour, the same distance.. and even if it is the same, do we perceive it as being the same.. as in does blue look the same to everyone..

It’s the same question I have with regard to conscience. We say very casually that we must follow our conscience but what is the conscience telling us? Is this inner voice for different people not conditioned differently by life’s experiences?
The incidents in our life must mould us all in a unique manner.

I think that conscience is the absolute, pure, unadulterated emotion we feel in response to anything just before the intellect takes over. It’s that split second reaction which cannot be controlled.

Does this split-second reaction vary for everyone or is it the same?

Does everyone feel the same anguish when a terror attack happens?
- Or when a tree is cut?
- Or when a dog is kicked?
- Or when we hear about the NSG soldiers who died fighting for the country?
- Or about global warming and the destruction of the rain forests?
- Or about the inhuman living conditions in Africa?
- Or shopkeepers being threatened?
- Or when innocent people were attacked during the railway examinations?
- Or when the Taj mahal is threatened by factory emissions?
- Or when we see the glory of the rising sun?
- Or the splendour of nature?

Will the reactions of every person reading the above questions be the same? I don’t know the answer but I’m quite sure it’s in the negative.

If these things affected everyone the same way, we would have no terrorists; we would have no hunger in the world, nor any injustice.

So what’s the solution? What is it that we can change to make it such?

I think that since these are all reactions based on perceptions of the world, the one thing we can do is to ensure that everyone’s perception of the world is good.

It’s a vicious circle that we are all stuck in. Perceptions are based on experiences and experiences are further created by our reactions which are based on our perceptions.

Change, therefore, is hidden within us. We have to rethink our world-view and our aspirations. We have to modify our reactions to make sure that we are creating positive experiences for ourselves and people around us. That is the only way to break the cycle and begin afresh.

My mum says that the split-second reaction of the conscience is the same in everyone and the first time the conscience does insist that we do what is right.. but then, we stop the voice of the conscience and do what we want and that’s what kills it.

If that is true, let us not do that any more. Let us listen to the first voice within us and follow it. Let us allow the positive influence of the conscience to guide our reactions. Once the new cycle of positive thought and action is started, it will influence experiences and reactions within and around us, for the better, and hopefully we will be able to build up a new, positive, universal conscience.

So finally, after much thought, I return to the words of Voltaire:

The safest course is to do nothing against one's conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear from death.

.. and these words make so much more sense to me now.

Right to Freedom

There are two principles that any definition of democracy includes. The first principle is that all members of the society have equal access to power and the second that all members enjoy universally recognised freedoms and liberties.

Both these principles have been violated time and again by various people / agencies / political parties.

Just yesterday there was a news item that said that Oxford book store in Mumbai had been asked by a policeman, attached to the Marine Drive police station, to remove all books by all Pakistani authors as they feared an attack by the MNS. Apparently, a staff member, also attached to the MNS, ‘advised’ them to do so saying why must we keep books of Pakistani authors? I’m guessing that the purpose is to not allow anyone from the neighbouring nation to make money from us.

We are, however, missing the point. This is not about Pakistani authors. This is about the right of an Indian to sell, buy, read, love, hate or detest what he wants. This is about the freedom to choose. I would not buy the book, but I still want to have the choice to buy or not to buy.

And what are the police doing about it? Nothing except making citizens cower down to such ridiculous demands. They are here to protect the people against this and instead, they want to make life easier for themselves by restricting our lifestyle. This has become a trend in the past couple of years. They had also advised ‘Bombay Scottish’ to change the name to ‘Mumbai’ as the MNS did not approve. Who is the MNS to approve or disapprove? I’m surprised that the Election commission is not taking any action against them for their strong-arm tactics. They should perhaps be debarred from contesting the election.

This is no different from saying that women must cover themselves fully or no one will be responsible for the consequences or from telling women students that they must not wear jeans. These are absurd statements meant to cover up the inefficiency of our security agencies.. and under the pretext of ‘Prevention is better than cure’. I have to disagree with that. In some instances, it’s important to cure so that anti-bodies are created which make the body immune to further infection. The same should be the case with law and order. Perpetrators of any injustice should be challenged and brought to book to serve as an example to the rest of the populace.

The strangest thing is that no one has raised their voice against this. We have to understand that every such move by any political party must be challenged. This is a threat to the freedom of every citizen and it’s important to nip it in the bud.

We are so focussed on Pakistan that we fail to see the threat from within.. and one day, when it becomes a monster that’s too big to control, we’ll find that it’s too late.

Fair trial

The supreme court has today directed that every accused has the right to a fair trial and has told prosecution to produce all evidence even if it favours the accused and can help to prove him innocent.

One would imagine this to be a given as the whole point is for the accused to get justice... but it's good to have it reiterated, to, perhaps, counter misinterpretation of guidelines as well as frailties of the human spirit.