The aggrieved persons stand before the big man and only the leader is offered a chair to sit, as the issue is discussed and assurances given to have it “looked into”.MPs, MLAs, rich landlords, top businessmen and senior government officers are ushered into an “inner office” where the atmosphere is more relaxed and tea/coffee may be served or at least offered.
A soldier in uniform still creates a stir and evokes awe, but this too is rapidly dwindling with the politicisation of the upper echelons of the armed forces. But it derives salience from institutional prestige and power.
After Independence, the laws became aggressively egalitarian on paper. We ignore the political economy, within which laws operate, only at our peril. Clearly, rutba was lacking in Mathura last week when an armed mob of land-grabbers, operating in the guise of social do-gooders and political anarchists, killed two police officers and injured many others. Under the British, the rule of law was primarily imposed to protect the interests of Europeans.
The difference is that the Americans evoked awe by unleashing firepower from the air and thousands of armed soldiers on the ground, while rutba is really the authority or charisma exerted by a single district officer or superintendent of police to quell a local disturbance. Events snowball as the local police waits for directions from seniors, who ignore such events till they explode and become “above the radar” on centralised flashpoint monitors.
For the middle-class petty businessmen, small farmers and the poor who come thro-ugh intermediaries — lawyers, village and block-level politicians or non-state actors — a darshan is usually arranged by the peon in tacit recognition of their collective power. Rutba is the capacity of a single individual to control many others. In Indian sarkari parlance, however, it’s closer to the “shock and awe” tactics used by the US Army in Iraq and Afghanistan. When ministers visit and want to meet the DM or SP, who will “call on” whom depends on the relative political weight — “closeness” — of the two to the chief minister. Their only chance to get the big man’s attention is to hope that his car will stop, its window wound down so that a written petition can be stuffed in and heart-rending pleas babbled to the inhabitant of the car. In a 2002 Transparency International China pvc Sliding Window Manufacturers survey of citizen perceptions, the police was ranked the most corrupt institution. But the political circumstances which allowed the encroachment in the first place made its order unenforceable. The writer is adviser, Observer Research Foundation. We have the right to private property but it can be taken away, quite casually, for “public purposes”.
This impression continues even today. Being a policeman is an unenviable task. The Kenyan rule, whilst unjust, was honest and was in line with political reality. The police works best, like the Army, in a regulatory environment where the do’s and don’ts are clear and in line with the law. It is difficult to preserve rutba if a police force has to be on good neighbourly terms with criminals unauthorisedly camping on public land right under their nose as the squatters had the right political connections.
Other than purposefully poor oversight of public property, the reason why encroachments are seen so benignly is that property rights are only lightly embedded in our political and social consciousness. The Army is seen as the force that does all the heavy lifting, while the police just hangs about wielding a lathi, harassing people and pocketing bribes. Our laws are hopelessly idealistic and unenforceable. In India, this principle regulates the use of force for self-protection. Whom to challan or ignore for a traffic offence; how forcefully to quell unruly behaviour on the streets — each petty incident requires the police officer to first think of the political consequences.
Your social status is evident in the treatment you get from these worthies. By then it’s often too late. Even today, in parts of Uttar Pradesh, the superintendent of police is called “kaptan sahib”. It worked well to preserve property rights. Decisive, timely, preventive action often suffers. The poorest, unorganised litigants are stopped outside the gate by police guards.Rutba, an Urdu word, means status or honour. What led to this ruckus was the enforcement of a high court order for their eviction from a public park they had illegally occupied since 2014, that was adjacent to the local police headquarters. The only Indian institutions that still demonstrate rutba are the Supreme Court and the Army. District magistrates and superintendents of police have to be adept at this game of privileging and stratifying people — just like their colonial predecessors. Today, there is nothing muddier than when and how a police officer should wield powers legitimately vested in him or her.
Bollywood has for long either reviled the policeman as a bumbling Inspector Clouseau (of Pink Panther fame) or played up the image of the good, fearless cop — Amitabh Bachchan in Zanjeer, Om Puri in Ardh Satya and Ajay Devgn in Gangaajal — who takes on criminals and vanquishes all. Indians view the rule of law not as a framework according to which we should mould our behaviour, but as a hurdle, crossing which is a signal of prowess and power. The Allahabad high court was entirely correct to order the eviction in Mathura. Under colonial rule, the police and Army worked in tandem. The cost of such hypocrisy is the death of at least two dozen people, many more injured and a nail in the coffin of the rule of law. In Kenya, another former British colony, till about 2006, a big landowner — usually European — could shoot to kill a trespasser without application of the “quantum of force used” rule. Neither image is really helpful. Twenty-two squatters reportedly also died in the retaliatory police firing. Captains of the British Indian Army who were compelled to leave the military were often appointed to the police, which was considered a “softer” job
"We are not worried if there is no demand for spectrum..Companies like Idea Cellular and Vodafone (which have announced decision to merge in India) will put their spectrum together for efficiencies," COAI DG Rajan S Mathews told PTI. We are interested in giving the industry an opportunity to buy spectrum," Deepak had said on the sidelines of the MobileWorld Congress in Barcelona just a day before he was named Indias next Ambassador to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) from June this year.
"In the immediate context, we dont expect a whole lot of demand for the spectrum because mergers and harmonisation will lead to efficiencies in terms of use of existing spectrum. Companies cannot spend three months every year in recalibrating their strategy on airwaves," he said.Idea Cellular and Vodafone have decided to merge in India to create the countrys biggest telecom service provider with a customer base of over 394 million. Also, typically companies tend to buy spectrum keeping in mind their requirements for the next 2-3 years, he said.New Delhi: Cellular operators body COAI hassaid the government should not rush to spectrum auction this year and instead, allow the market to settle down in the wake of recent mergers and acquisitions.
Telecom operator Bharti Airtel, the current market leader, has said it will acquire Norwegian Telenors India unit, and more recently announced the acquisition of wood-alu door & window Tikona Digitals 4G airwaves.Mathews comments come at a time when the industry is going through a massive phase of consolidation, intensified by the disruptive entry of challenger Reliance Jio."The problem with having an annual spectrum auction (that is being talked about) is that it requires three months of preparation, hence a 12-month window is too small.Last month, then telecom secretary J S Deepak had said the government is looking to make spectrum auction an annual event.COAI emphasised that the next round of sale of airwaves should ideally be scheduled in 2018.Companies will be keen to wait a little more to see how the market dynamics plays out, Mathews said, adding that other factors which need to be taken into consideration are demand for data and smartphones."
Other than the dynamics of licence requirement, a 2-3 year timeframe to conduct auction is more than adequate to allow for predictability and strategic planning by firms," he said..After buying airwaves, telecom companies also need time to order equipment, get infrastructure ready and be tuned in to the existing network.Last week, however, in a written reply in the Lok Sabha, Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha had said the government had no immediate plan to provide telecom companies with an option to buy spectrum annually
During the operation, the Army — assisted also by the BSF — used “Unmanned Aerial Vehicles” for surveillance and reconnaissance. Security forced killed one militant on Wednesday. This is the second time in eight months when militants have used the Jammu and Kashmir Entrepreneurship Development Institute (JKEDI) compound as cover to attack soldiers.
This is the latest in a string of attacks since India conducted a military operation across the Line of Control to avenge a deadly attack by Pakistan-backed terrorists in Kashmir’s Uri last month.U. Also, paramilitary forces, besides CRPF and J&K police men joined them to encircle the campus along the Srinagar-Jammu highway.In a “decisive” assault on Wednesday morning, five commandos of the Army’s Parachute Regiment used a ladder to enter the battered building through a first-floor window. His accomplice had been killed on Tuesday. In February, three soldiers, as many militants and a civilian were killed during a gunbattle that also raged for three days on the compound, about 16 km south of summer capital Srinagar. “It was a step-by-step kind of control-gaining aluminium single casement door operation to avoid casualties as the terrorists were well positioned inside the building,” said an officer. The operation was suspended at the nightfall and resumed with first light on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Over 50 rockets and hundreds of grenades besides machineguns and small arms were used in the operation, causing extensive damage to the building. In the initial stage of the operation, one Army jawan was injured.30 am on Monday.
The militants had taken up positions after barging into the sprawling campus at about 6. Nobody was present inside since the JKEDI — like other institutions in the Valley — has been shut for more than three months amid violence and unrest triggered by Hizb-ul-Mujahedin commander Burhan Muzaffar Wani’s encounter killing. Security forces announced the operation was over after a search of around 50 rooms and as many washrooms.. Naqash)A 57-hour standoff outside Jammu and Kashmir’s highway town of Pampore ended on Wednesday evening with the killing of both militants holed up inside a 7-storey government building which was pounded with mortar and rocket fire by security forces. (Photo: H.The Army’s special forces rushed to the spot from a nearby cantonment. In the February standoff, three Army officials had been killed trying to move in at night. Officials said the two killed were “exceptionally motivated and highly trained terrorists”, most probably belonging to Lashkar-e-Taiba, who used the 7-storey building as a concrete bunker.The security forces come out after a three-day gunbattle that killed both militants hiding inside a multistoreyed government building in Pampore
Even as anger rose among millions of Indians running out of cash after Tuesday’s demonetisation of high-value notes, the government said on Saturday that it would take “two to three weeks” to fix the two lakh-odd ATMs to cope with the currency shake-up. Frustrated weekend crowds struggled to pay for food, fuel and other daily needs in a chaos that began on Thursday, two days after the government spiked 86 per cent of Indian currency notes worth Rs 14 lakh crore.“
The crowd is five times more than what we saw on the first day,” said a bank manager in Delhi.“Prior calibration would have given the whole game away,” said Mr Jaitley, even as wilting banks and ATMs battled winding queues, scuffles, minor stampedes for a third straight day.Union finance minister Arun Jaitley said that the government did not go for prior re-calibration of ATMs because it wanted to keep the move to demonetise Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes a secret to ramp up India’s fight against black money. About 25 per cent of old notes are yet to be taken out of ATMs.Traders in many areas downed shutters, threatening to grind large parts of India’s cash-driven economy to a halt, while grocers charged exorbitant prices.Many families comprising even the elderly and women jostled in lines to improve their chances of exchanging or withdrawing money.
The government has also extended the validity of withdrawn currency for paying public utility bills till November 14. Much of India’s rural economy is powered by cash transactions with few people having bank accounts or operating one even if they have an account. So far there have been reports of five deaths in the ongoing chaos across states despite heavy police presence at banks and ATMs.
Approximately Rs 2 lakh crore has so far been deposited in all banks.The finance minister said thousands of people China pvc tilt-turn window manufacturers are busy fixing the ATM problem, and there is enough cash to tide over the problem. Either ATMs were unable to meet the spiraling demand for cash, or they could not dispense the new bills.Banks will remain open over the weekend but the crisis may deepen on Monday when they would be shut in some parts of the country because of state holidays.
The government is looking into the sudden “cropping up” of Rs 2 lakh crore in zero-balance Jan Dhan accounts within two days of the demonetisation move, Mr Jaitely said, even as Opposition leaders Arvind Kejriwal and Mamata Banerjee escalated their attack on the government, seeking a rollback of the move.Mr Jaitely regretted the inconvenience and appealed to people not to crowd banks to deposit invalid notes as the window for doing so is till December 30. Banks and ATMs remained closed on Wednesday.“Once the ATMs are functional, people can withdraw a maximum of Rs 2,000 per card per day up to November 18, and after that Rs 4,000 per day per card,” an RBI statement said.
Besides bonafide religious trusts, he said there are few exceptions relating to Hindu Undivided Family and trusts owning properties.” Referring to the Income Disclosure Scheme, Mr Jaitley said those having unaccounted money should take advantage of the disclosure window ending September 30 to come clean by paying 45 per cent tax and penalty.
“Four layers of officers and an appeal tribunal has been created since this is a major power,” he said, adding it is being done because there were apprehensions that one officer might end up being corrupt.Talking about the Panama leaks, the minister noted that the government had created a multi agency group, which has named around 500 Indians who have allegedly stashed money in offshore entities, had submitted three reports to the government last month.” The finance ministry said that sufficient safeguards have been put in place to prevent any misuse provisions of the Benami law, which seeks to confiscate such properties.
That investigations have progressed a lot,” he said. The earlier term of “known source of income” has been replaced with “known sources” with regard to purchase of property, he said, adding, “The property outside the country will not be covered under the Benami law but will be dealt with under the black money law.
“There are many people who have illegal accounts, there are some who say they have transfered money on the basis of RBI rules. The Upper House passed the legislation through a voice vote, a week after it was passed in the Lok Sabha.Finance minister Arun Jaitley said: “A law alone will not solve the problem of black money but efforts will have to be made to create fear of law and stop its generation,” adding, “Since it’s the Benami law like the black money law, there has to be a deterrent provision which we have put it in this particular law and I hope people get the clear signal and don’t give the state an opportunity as far as using this law is concerned.The bill, an China wholesale pvc casement window anti-black money measure, aims to seize benami property and prosecute those indulging in such activities.. Mr Jaitley said that fiduciary and trustee holding is allowed under the Benami bill but the investment should be made from the known sources of income.
Minutes before the Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Bill, 2016 was passed in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday, finance minister Arun Jaitley warned those having undisclosed income, adding that rapid progress has been made in Panama Papers leaks probe. He added that offences under the amended law would be non-cognisable as the government does not want multiple agencies to get involved and harass people. Mr Jaitley said this Bill is aimed at seizing benami property besides prosecuting those indulging in such activities as the provisions for prosecution could not be operationalised in want of rules in the 1988 Act. He said the law also provides for those genuine property purchases which could have been funded by family members or other sources as a loan
