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Journalism of Courage
The choice before the BJP, then, had looked stunning. Last week, before the turbulence in the party drew to its somewhat limp end, Britain8217;s Financial Times said that the BJP was being called upon to do one of the following: 8216;8216;reposition itself as an inclusive and moderate right-of-centre party, as Mr Advani has been urging, or return to being the puppet of the Hindu fundamentalist groups that have long supplied both its rank-and-file membership and its ideological beliefs8217;8217;. The paper pointed to celebrations by VHP cadres in Ahmedabad on Advani8217;s now-retracted resignation as an illustration of the perils the BJP leadership faces in effecting the much-needed 8216;8216;sophisticated make-over8217;8217;.
The Times painted BJP8217;s choice in similarly stark terms. The paper complimented Advani for recognising much before his party the waning popularity of the 8216;8216;politics of communal division8217;8217;. It was more effusive than that. On the day before Advani withdrew his resignation, it said: 8216;8216;He may no longer be a hawk but he may prove a phoenix8217;8217;.
The elusive one
The Observer in Britain noted the strange disappearance of Gautam Goswami, the man who shot to national celebrity status when Time magazine hailed him as a hero. The paper recalled what Time wrote: 8216;8216;Goswami8217;s reputation for upholding the law improves the image of a civil service perceived by many Indians as corrupt or inefficient8217;8217;.
Goswami continues to elude the arrest warrant belatedly issued by authorities long days after an investigative series in the Indian Express followed the flood relief money trails into black holes on his watch. Noted the Observer: 8216;8216;The inquiry into Goswami and 25 other officials and contractors has been championed not by the judicial system but by the Indian Express newspaper, which exposed inconsistencies in accounting for the money.8217;8217;
Thinking freedom
The Al Ahram Weekly called it an 8216;8216;unprecedented initiative8217;8217;. In this season of reformist moves in the region, prominent intellectuals across the Arab world came together to issue a declaration of principles. 8216;8216;We, Arab liberals, urgently appeal against the tendency to oversimplify the crucial issues that affect our lives. It is not through oversimplification, as those engaged in the ritual bowing before 8216;democracy8217; or 8216;resistance8217; imagine, that we will avert impending destruction8217;8217;, they began.
It was a difficult task they had set themselves. Sometimes gingerly, and often forcefully, the declaration picked out a less trodden path on the ground littered with easy oppositions.
They pledged their allegiance to 8216;8216;modernist, enlightened values8217;8217;, while urging that this should not be construed as a form of obedience to the US, and at the same time acknowledging that Arab liberal consciousness draws primarily upon western experience. They pointed out that today this liberal tradition is in need of urgent rescue and reaffirmation in the West. 8216;8216;There can be no Guantanamos or Abu Ghraibs, for example8217;8217;.
While acknowledging the dangers of despotism in their region, they put down their belief that democracy is 8216;8216;the culmination of a process, not the beginning of one, as some neo-liberals 8212; almost indistinguishable from neo-conservatives 8212; would have it8217;8217;.
They rejoiced in the fall of dictators, and of Saddam Hussein, yet they insisted on legitimacy in the instrument wielded against them, 8216;8216;8230; there can be no excuse for inflicting on Damascus the disaster that befell Baghdad on the pretext of championing democracy8230;8217;8217;.
They were disturbed by the furies worked up against globalisation 8216;8216;at a time when our societies desperately need an influx of capital and investment8217;8217;.
Most of all, it was a plea for a more mindful engagement with the challenges in the region, one that sidesteps emotional calls to take a position for the West or against it.
Who trusts EVMs?
Ever since the Electronic Voting Machine was deployed in India8217;s polling booth, it has become an argument stopper of sorts. It takes the particularly persistent questioner to ask questions about the free-ness and fair-ness of the count in the time of the EVM.
Is the faith in the EVM bordering on superstition?
8216;8216;There are many problems with American elections, but none more serious than the rise of paperless electronic voting, whose results cannot be trusted8217;8217; proclaimed the New York Times in an editorial last week. The paper extended support to an initiative by some 8216;8216;grassroots reformers8217;8217; calling for legislation to ensure that electronic voting machines produce 8216;8216;voter-verifiable paper records8217;8217;.
In the present system electronic voting lacks the necessary safeguards, said the NYT. Machines8217; computers can be programmed to steal votes; hackers can break in. Most of all, the people are beginning to distrust it. The solution, for the paper, is that each machine produce a paper record that can then be inspected and verified by the voter. These paper records can be stored and counted after the polls; their results can be tallied with the results on the machine.
As many as 19 states in the US have already passed laws requiring paper-trails. The NYT is asking for a federal law that can draw in the rest.
