Judicial Impact Assessment: Need of the hour.

Indian judiciary has been lately on media’s billboard germane to the bustling activities going on in the court lobbies. Albeit, the internal crisis imperiling the judiciary is bountiful, yet what’s more harrowing is the patchy judicial delivery system and the dawdling of cases till sheer ad nauseaum.

According to recent statistics, a colossal 2.8 crore cases are pending in India’s district courts and moreover, the dearth of judges to combat this deluge is exacerbating the condition. As per the numbers, Indian courts are in need of more than 15,000 more arbitrators to even come close to fighting the backlog. Some more vexing numbers are: More than 2 million cases have been stuck in district courts for more than 10 years, around 2.3 million cases are pending in High Courts for more than 10 years.

Certainly, we are not in the shining years of our judiciary. The internal power tussle, paucity of judges, lackadaisical court systems, and an overwhelming backlog of cases is indeed a pellucid tocsin of how our system is currently osculating the nadir. Though all this may seem aggrandized and inordinately cynical and pessimistic look, however, the grass-roots condition is exactly the worst. A demotic legal maxim avows, “Justice delayed is justice denied” and if we base our extant scenario on the apothegm, then certainly we have bungled up in dispensing justice to those who confide in the system. The preposterously dilatory system of ours is not only obliterating the lives of millions of law-abiding denizens but is also mulcting so many taxpayers. The ginormous amount of cases is bamboozling the national treasure, as the cost of financially supporting the courts for running cases which should have been arbitrated years before, is also highly exorbitant.

All in all, we are in a quagmire of problems that have blighted our system. And out of this catch-22, there is only one way out- addressing the problem in the apposite manner. Though addressing this mammoth issue is in itself a formidable task, yet Judicial Impact Assessment (JIA) can unequivocally ensure a better and promising future.

When new laws are promulgated, all the practical technicalities are by no means kept in mind. The putative reason is the lack of opportune coordination between the legislature and the judiciary. This, in turn, leads to an augmented onus on the shoulders of the judiciary, as the court system is left with meager resources to take into account the excessive burden. For instance, the amendment in Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act in the year 2005 generated more than 25 lakh new criminal cases. JIA focuses on centering on such exigent issues.

One of the prime reasons behind our faltering judicial system is the lack of requisite data even at the levels of the subordinate courts. For there has been no judicial assay hitherto, there are no official figures which talk about the working of our judicial system. We still have been unable to decipher the primary causes for the delay in sloughing off the cases (besides the shortage of judges), we are also not aware of the costs that are accrued in the proceeding of various cases and our system also lacks any mechanism to calculate such expenses. The budgeting mechanism is obsolete, and investment of Judiciary has not even exceeded more than 0.1% of the total outlay under the plan “Administration of Justice: constitution and organization of all courts, except the Supreme Court and the High Courts,” mentioned in the Concurrent List. The budget making procedures are obviously outdated and aloofness between the judiciary and the legislature in budget allocation corral to compound matters further.

The underlying principle behind the JIA is the constitution of a body consisting of statisticians, legal advisors and economists who would collaborate with the judicial department, CJI of India, Chief Justices of the High Courts and officials of the Home Ministry and Law Ministry to effect reforms in the legislature-judiciary-executive coordination and also to formulate better budgeting procedures for our courts.

With certitude, being au courant with the statistics of the current scenario is a strong need for the success of any such constitutional body and JIA would provide that pedestal of support. On one hand, the assessment will work towards devising strategies to estimate the judicial workload resulting from new laws and the cost of various services like judge-time and support services involved to carry on with the burden, and on the other hand, it will also focus on a deep lacuna in the central funding of our courts.

Over 90% of the judicial cases are processed in our subordinate courts which have been ‘forced’ to deal with both central as well as state laws. Though Article 247 requires the Central government to constitute additional courts to deal with matters appurtenant to the laws enacted by the parliament, yet the Union government circumambulates this requirement by citing that the executive powers guaranteed to it by the constitution doesn’t allow it establish courts in states. JIA will accentuate this issue and raise the concerns regarding the adequate funding of the subordinate courts for tackling the cases arising due to the Central laws.

The pain and the suffering of so many litigants behooves us take this enormously pivotal step since justice that is not delivered timely is in itself a repulsive injustice to our citizens.   

JAI HIND, JAI BHARAT

JAI MA BHARTI

Finding God

One of the most subtle yet conspicuous concept in this world is of “God.” Nobody knows who created the God, nobody knows whether God was ever created or not and nobody, in actuality, knows what is GOD. Albeit some have the proclivity to deem themselves as “atheists”, some consider themselves “theists” while some other live in agnosticism, yet there is not a single being who has been able to remain unpartisan and unfazed by the notion of God. For the nonce, let us forget your predilections towards the respective topic and become disinterested in dealing with the veracity of the context. There is not a single human being who doesn’t desiderate to meet God, some want to have a ‘dekko’ of him to achieve utter bliss, some want to ascertain whether he is actually extant, and some want to curse him for all the adversities that they have faced throughout their lives. Throughout our lives we are in the pursuit of God. Knowingly or unknowingly, we base our propositions on him. In fact, Science talks about nothing but the ultimate unification of how the nature works and nature is indeed an even more subtle term for God, so Science is looking for God also. While some are pursuing their dreams of reaching God through science, some adopt austere lifestyle of ascetics and those who can’t go either way end up erecting their own realms about God. In fact the biggest question that the world has ever faced or will continue to face is “WHAT IS GOD?”

We all have our own proclivities regarding God. Some envisage him standing in the ground of Kurukshetra with a handsome countenance and the enigmatic azure colour, while some may imagine him sacrificing himself on the crucifix to redeem the mankind of its maladies; but unlike our naïve minds which have presented God as an individual belonging to only one section of the mankind, a great poet envisioned his truth:

Nida Fazli once said:

Ghar se masjid hai bahut duur chalo yuun kar len,

Kisi rote hue bachche ko hansaya jae

The mosque is too far, so for a while

Let us make a weeping child smile

So much ingenuity is hidden in this couplet that the one who can unravel the real meaning and induce it into one’s life won’t need any further exposition germane to God. The most pitiable thing about our life is that we are not living at all, we are just surviving the daily affairs. We have crowded our lives with so many complications and superstitions that we have impelled ourselves to forget the cardinal meaning of life. Isn’t human life a big wonder in itself? Have your ever extolled yourself for your body is not a mere piece of flesh, so much internal work is going in inside you that science may not replicate it in the coming five hundred years, yet we take our lives for granted. Have your ever felt yourself? Have you ever given time to look into yourself rather than onto others? Nida Fazli hints that living life is God and I believe that the paramount reason why we fail to achieve bliss is because we shun the real God and look for the immaterial questions and answers. We all have been given this life just once, yet we waste it peering outside and floundering ourselves with things that don’t matter. Our life is nothing less than a miracle. You look at it from any dimension, scientifically, spiritually or psychologically, our body, our cells and our mind are such wonders that can never be created by any artificial means. We often fail to adulate that great gift that we have been bestowed with, we often fail to belaud the God that has been embedded into us and try to look for some charismatic personality that indeed doesn’t exist outside of us. Human beings have got unlimited potential. If you peruse Liao Fan’s lessons, one obvious takeaway that you can get is the kindness is fate and fate is God and God is you. The biggest happiness that you can ever derive can only be extracted by helping others. The day you resort to helping the needy, caring for those who can’t care for themselves and eschewing fallacious beliefs and inspired notions about the myths, all manacles will be broken; fetters will be annihilated and you will find the God. You have been endowed with this life through an excessively remarkable combination and permutation by the nature and each and every person must be proud over this fact. All our life, we make goals for ourselves, when we reach those goals, we make new goals and we continue doing it till one day death strikes our door and we understand that indeed we did nothing. A life that has not been dedicated to helping the impoverished is life wasted. So many people are going to walk this earth but only a few will be remembered, only a few will be the source of inspiration to many and the thing that differentiates them from others is that they dedicated themselves to their God and their God was their kindness.

Buddha preached agnosticism because he knew that everybody possess God but nobody would ever realize that and hence it is better to say that you can never ascertain whether there is God or not. Rather than digging deep into the questions that are of no utility to the mankind, he asked people to look within themselves and find their God. “Looking within oneself” has become a cliché yet this “self-mirroring” process eludes almost whole of the humanity.  Looking within oneself means being thankful and appreciative of this colossal universe and of being given the chance to make a change come true in the lives of those who can’t effect changes themselves. Looking with oneself means feeling your body and gasping the difference between your spirit and your flesh and understanding the egoism won’t last long, that superciliousness will be battered down and only the inner kindness in you will leave an indelible mark on this world.

Try to “look into yourself” rather than “looking onto others.” Till the last moment of your life, strive to do things that can make a crying child smile and let me tell you it is not that easy.

JAI HIND, JAI BHARAT

JAI MA BHARTI

When...

When times are not right and things go wrong,
When you are left behind and world moves on,

When the Sun has gone down and darkness refuses to recede,
When you are trying harder but success is not gonna pay heed,

When gloominess strikes and success eludes,
When the world is unfair and life remains impertinent and rude,

When answers seem abstruse,
Painful are, failure's scars and defeat's bruise,

When sorrows are abound and catharsis inevitable,
Wanton is life, nothing is tractable,

When merriment seems gone,
And fear of getting back up is chilling your bone,

When you no longer believe in yourself,
And have lost the track,
When defeats have take you aback,

When you have to stand alone,
Others refuses to trust or bank on,

When the apogee seems esoteric,
The acme seems aloof,

Every moment, dejection is striking hard,
Stay calm and DON'T YOU DARE TO RETARD,

I know it's heartrending,
But don't you dare to plummet down,

This journey is yours and you are its path,
Did you come this long only to fall apart!

Amid the din of harangues,
Listen to that silent yet blazing fire,
Rekindle it and veer your ire,

No matter what you do,
Don't dupe the traveler's desire,

Hilltop may be invisible for the moment,
But the clouds can't stay for long,
Through sheer tenacity,
Subjugate the impediments' throng,

If you can't run,
Just crawl,
Your fate can be redeemed by none,
But your own soul.

JAI HIND, JAI BHARAT

JAI MA BHARTI

It's sometimes fair...

For life is not always fair,

It’s sometimes fair to let go,

For the Sun can’t shine always,

It’s sometimes fair to trust the darkness,

For the sea can’t always beget nifty waves,

It’s sometimes fair to accept your flaw,

It’s sometimes fair to cry,

It’s sometimes fair to go wry,

It’s sometimes fair to fail,

It’s sometimes fair to fear the gale,

It’s sometimes fair to feel bad,

It’s sometimes fair to not be always glad,

It’s sometimes fair to reckon back,

It’s sometimes fair to stop and feel bad about where you lack,

But it’s never fair to incinerate your hopes,

But it’s never fair to feel that everything is gone,

Cause one day the tides will come and the sun will shine,

That grandeur will be thine,

Because day the darkness will go away and the fruits will be borne,

Because one day, life would stop being wanton and merriment will be grown,

Because one day, your stint of years’ scoundrel failure,

Would be minute,

In front of a day’s success of your worthy resolute.

JAI HIND, JAI BHARAT

JAI MA BHARTI

Misguided Pluralism.

Around the world, the momentum being developed is of “Right vs. Center”. In the US, the democrats and republicans are busy wrangling, in the UK the Labors and the Conservatives are busy underscoring the chasm and in India too, the so-called debate has sneaked into the limelight. The issue became even more flagrant with the election of Mr. Trump to the presidency of the US and since then there has been no end.

Some are averring that this is rightist’s epoch. With the Republicans taking up 33 out of 50 gubernatorial posts in the USA, Brexit in the UK, rightist politicians have certainly hit the bull’s eye. Though the statistics are easy to expound why this is rightist’s period, but still pasting them on the Indian subcontinent and furnishing exegesis based on the same would be nothing short of a tomfoolery because in India there is indeed no right, left or even center. Here we don’t understand the directions but we believe in time. If you are in power, head to whichever direction you want, but unfortunately if you are resting outside the parliament make your needle stick to the center and ensnarl the world through you pluralistic approach to ride back to power. This is not something novel. In fact, this is a synoptic version of our 70 years old political theory. Ideologies here are not paramount requisite to win but if you lose, your ideology will certain spring up to consciousness from its graveyard and you can beat the entire bush around this tractable phenomenon.

Elite cliques of erudite journalists and authors are busy terming the current scenario as that of “ Pluralism vs. Majoritarianism” but none is indeed ready to ponder on from where this concept came.

Pluralism means that we accept that many different identities can be extant together maintain perfect harmony and no infringements will be made to the rights of any identity in the nation. Through pluralism is a seemingly easy concept to apprehend but to find the real pluralist is an abstruse task. In India, self-proclaimed pluralists abound but only in the opposition parties. Notwithstanding having enjoyed so many years at the helm, these self-proclaimed political parties are now finding it difficult to even reserve a seat or two in the parliament and certainly, there has to be a reason. Either the Indian citizens are themselves disposed towards majoritarianism or the opposition pluralists are hoodwinkers. And our work is to scrutinize both the things in an outrightly disinterested manner.

India is one of the most culturally diverse countries in the world. Our demography gives a considerable speech to religions world is not even aware out. Our neighbors are filled with the multi-cultural entities and our famous judicial system has set precedents which are enough to corroborate the in the name of law, religion is “in-toto” eschewed. I won’t shy away from accepting that there are a few differences, but still the bonds that we all share together far outnumber the differences. The Muslim population in our country exceeds the combined Muslim population in various Islamic countries. Christians, Sikhs, Jews, Buddhists and many other religions exist under the shade of brethren. To an outsider, my words may seem are aggrandized and supercilious but to an Indian, I don’t need to expound further. Even the self-proclaimed pluralists term us as a multi-cultural society with tolerance towards every religion in the world and hence Indian public can be exonerated from this accusation.

Since our first accused has been exonerated, we must commence mulling over the next one: the opposition party’s pluralistic theme. This is going to stretch further since we need to exhume our past. 

If we glance through our past, it is not hard to see that everyone swings with time and pluralism is more about fear. Congress has always worked through this frame of pluralism. Today, it counts itself as the biggest sympathizer of Muslims but it fails to answer as to why 42.7% of the country’s 180 million Muslims (Census 2011) are still unlettered. Those who brand everything as Dalits vs upper castes fail to answer a simple question: Who gave the slogan- “Pandit shank bajaega, haathi chalta jaega.” None is ready to answer because everybody has always operated through fear.

The single instrument that can conquer the world is ‘fear’.  Here also fear is the key factor. In the previous 70 years, what the so-called pluralist parties have done is nothing but inducing fear in the minds of people. Muslims have been taught that BJP is against Islam but the preachers of this belief fail to answer the question as to why Muslims account for only 4.4% of all the students taking up higher education despite making up 14% of the population. This is the second time when BJP is in power. In our political history more than half of our period as an independent nation we have seen the governments of other parties, but still nobody has got anything. The same pluralistic flag bearing people who decry the current government of being pro-Hindu fail to answer the question as to why they didn’t do anything when they were themselves in power; the Left parties which are being vehemently censorious of the current government fail to answer as to what they did in regions like Bengal, when they were cherished with unquestionable power;   the self-proclaimed pro-Dalit forces fail to answer as to why social engineering is their forte and not the upliftment of Dalits and other backward classes. Our politics has always been a politics of fear. Muslims are being infused with a fear of Hindus, Dalits being imposed with the fear of upper castes and this list continues to strain further.

Until and unless this fear is there, many such factors would continue to operate and obfuscate us all. The founders of this nation had an entrenched belief that we all can coexist with peace; that our Gods can be different but our nation can be one. Fear is indeed the potent nemesis of this beautiful proposition. The educated Indian is becoming more and more aware of this fact and hence today the so-called pluralists have been trounced in every respect. The India of today doesn’t want dichotomies, it wants peace and progress. It is a shame that when the whole nation is looking forward to joining the elite international groups, some are still canvassing for themselves through these petty measures.

Pluralism is a great concept, but if misunderstood, its results can be devastating and surely India must be aware of this pluralistic approach.

JAI HIND, JAI BHARAT

JAI MA BHARTI

WHY CHINA WON'T LET NORTH KOREA OUT OF THE BAG?

The tremors of the soi-distant “Hydrogen Bomb” test conducted by North Korea were enough to heat up the political lobbies of the congresses around the world. The Trump administration has sprung into action with its threats of strangulating the belligerent nation through its military and trade policies, South Korea is in a quandary as President Moon Jae-in’s attempts to reinvigorate the “Sunshine Policy” to lure Pyongyang into disarmament through economic engagement have been futile per se, and People’s Republic of China (PRC) is too facing predicaments pertaining to the reprehensibly defiant attitude of the North Korean despot Kim Jon-un.

The Korean nuclear crisis go back to the events following the aftermath of “6-2-5- Upheaval” or the Korean War.  Much as the Pyongyang led by Kim Il-sung was able to repel the US forces with abetment received from the Chinese as well as the Soviet army, it become well conversant with the fact that its belligerent predilections would be a juxtaposition with the increasing USA’s influence and the hiking economic horizons of Seoul and ergo North Korea led to the commencement of its “all-fortressization policy” which rose to its summit in 2006 and struck open the contemporary Pandora’s box –North Korean Nuclear crisis.

Though, to most, North Korea seems to be an esoteric country led by an egotist and egoist tyrant, it seems much abstruse as to how the nation notwithstanding various sanctions continue to soar high in the development of ginormously detrimental weapons of mass destruction. If we dig deep down, it is not difficult to find out that one of the many reasons for the existence and the unfortunate success is the dragon’s tail.

The US President’s tweet including a warning that he’s gravely considering “stopping all trade with any country doing business with North Korea” was decried and termed as a diplomatic faux pas by many American policy analysts (they say that the first rule of democracy is never to make an inexecutable threat), but still it sufficed to convey how much hapless the US is at the Mandarin’s illegitimate support to the North Korea.

But, it is no covert fact that Chinese too have a huge stake in this business. In fact, taking up the 90% of the total investments of such an erratic nation would never be at the Chinese desk had North Korea not been a weapon against the American influence in the Korean peninsula regions. China doesn’t want US marines on its borders and is wary of the fact that the degeneration of the Kim Jon-un’s regime would ultimately lead to nothing less than US’s invasion of its border and it certainly wants no South Korea near its periphery.

This Chinese policy too started with the culmination of Mao’s China. PRC had been in existence for less than a year, but Mao knew that striking at the US would ultimately be a big leap for the newly erected communist regime. Sans any delay, Mao Zedong deputed as many as 3 million military personnel under the banner of People’s Volunteer Army. His policy worked in a paragon manner. Chinese belligerence on the pretext of its help to the North Korea remained largely successful in its various operations and Chinese, being proud of this achievement, still continues to meddle with the “rogue” North Korea in order to subvert the USA’s influence in the Eastern region.

North Korea is presently China’s 82^nd biggest trade partner. China’s unqualified support to North Korea has led to escalation of trade turnover from $550 million in 1995 to $5.6 billion in 2011. Indubitably, China is North Korea’s trade lifeline. 57% of the latter’s import and 42% of its export is directly germane to China. According to Chinese government, Pyongyang’s export to China amounted for $3 billion and imports shot up to $3.6 billion. China, indeed, is the major reason behind the survival of North Korea. For more than half a century, the 20 miles long “The Friendship Pipeline” running beneath the Yalu River has been serving as the North’s lifeline. Exact figures of the Chinese export through “The Friendship Lifeline” are not reported. Chinese government stopped citing the figures related to the pipeline a few years back. Nautilus Institute, a think tank specializing in North Korean energy statistics, believes that with the spur of economic growth, Kim Jon-un may be importing 850,000 tons of crude oil this year. According to various statisticians, North Korea uses almost a third of the crude oil import to fuel its military equipments for routine, nor-wartime usages.

No matter how much China exhibits its affectations of stiff action towards the growing North Korean military prowess, it is wary of the fact that any kind of trade embargo imposed on the North through the Chinese side would only undermine its influence on Pyongyang. Steve K. Bannon, Trump’s ousted Chief strategist outrightly said, “This is 100 percent about China. You have got to sanction the Chinese company and Chinese financial institution.”

No matter how much the world talks about constricting the North Korean animosity, until and unless China is pressurized to restrict its trade with Pyongyang, we must expect no change. War is certainly not a viable solution, but diplomatic policies can ultimately lead to a triumph in this inexplicable harrowing impasse. The ball remains in the Chinese court and the question is still: To Do Or Not To Do.    

JAI HIND, JAI BHARAT

JAI MA BHARTI

THE NORTH KOREAN PHILOSOPHY

It was the gory summer of 1989. After the rapid developments in the post-Mao China, country’s inscrutability on its human rights stance had infused fears in many bourgeois Chinese denizens, students, and NGOs. Nobody wanted an opaque system concealed enormously from the ones who indeed coalesce to give rise to China: the Chinese people, and hence various student’s organizations and NGOs had gone for hunger-strike in order to galvanize support for their worthy cause. But, unfortunately Chinese government had something else in mind. Deng Xiaoping, the then paramount leader of PRC’s (People Republic of China) deemed these benign protestors as an exigently impending political threat. What ensued further was nothing less than a macabre slaughter. Mobilization of more than 3,00,000 Chinese troops in Beijing led ultimately to deaths of thousands of students at the infamous Tiananmen Square, as the military used heavy grade weapons and tanks on the unarmed protestors.

28 years have passed away, but still Chinese stand on the human rights activists remains as much abhorrent as before. Though Xi’s China is much more developed than Deng’s China, the unscrupulous behavior regarding those wanting a transparent system in their nation continues to be a daymare for the Chinese people.

A recent report published by an international watchdog organization, Human Rights Watch, exclusively covers the severe crackdown by the Chinese officials on the human rights activists. The disturbing report lucidly blames the UN for its complicity in the illegitimate Chinese acts of oppression against those demanding basic rights that must be guaranteed to the citizens of a nation.  

The report starts with a scathing remark about how the United Nations is far away from living up to its tenets. When Mr. Xi Jinping, President of the PRC, stood on the podium to give his keynote address, a queer situation engulfed him. Unlike other addresses on the rostrum of UNHRC (United Nations Human Rights Council), Mr. Xi’s address was particularly different. Various officials and human right activists were made to leave the council, NGOs was barred from entering the complexes and facilities like parking lots etc. were complete cordoned off. This was particularly not the first incident on the board of the United Nations. In April 2017, security officials in the UN headquarters, New York City, forcibly sent out the ethnic Uyghur rights activist, Dolkun Isa. Mr. Isa was participating as an NGO member when he was confronted by security officials who ordered him to move out of the premises. No credible reasons were quoted by the organization and the UN remained utterly evasive of any questions on the issue.     

      

United Nations’ silent and unqualified support for a country that has not allowed a single visit by the UNHRC’s human right commissioner seems to be a vehement digression of its core principles. The HRW (Human Rights Watch) report points out that Beijing has been intentionally dilatory regarding the visits by rapporteurs working on political rights issues. “… although the Chinese government accepted visits by the special procedures for food, debt, discrimination against women, and extreme poverty over the last 15 years, it has rejected 12 other visits, especially visits by rapporteurs charged with protecting various civil and political rights, and for over a decade has been unwilling to accept a visit by the UN high commissioner for human rights,” the report adds.

Besides this, the ingenious report also talks about how China is making up a clique of like-minded countries on the UN’s forum in order to snub off any discussion regarding its exploitation of human rights. China’s entente with countries like Egypt, Algeria, and Cuba too helps it obviate any questions and scrutiny regarding the human rights issue.

For a country housing 1.379 billion people, such egregious floundering of basic human rights is in-toto reprehensible. Even though China is taking major roles at the international center-stage, but if its own people are deprived of the basic rights then that progress would be extremely hollow. There are numerous Cao Shunli and Dolkun Isa in China who are currently being reprimanded for speaking up for the rights of common people and unfortunately, this flagrant act continues to happen in front of the eyes of the world’s biggest organization, the UN. The most barbaric sins are truly committed transparently.

“…the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God.” – John F. Kennedy

JAI HIND, JAI BHARAT
JAI MA BHARTI