Editorial
Separation of judiciary from executive
Separation of judiciary from executive remains illusory even after the present alliance government is at the fag-end of its tenure. The principle of separation of powers is one of the vital elements of democracy. If the same individual assumes the functions of both executive and judiciary, the necessary check and balance disappears and rights of the citizens are not adequately protected. Abuse of power is only too likely as the bureaucracy is tempted to overreach itself, much to the negation of justice.
For quite some time thoughtful quarters have been demanding separation of judiciary from executive. India which inherited the same British administrative and judicial system carried out this separation. It has always been felt that to ensure independence of the judiciary, it must be separated from executive. In fact demand for separation of judiciary from executive had been a part of the movement for democracy itself and its implementation was part of the election pledges of both the Awami League and the BNP. Not that the parties while in power declined to effect the separation but they only paid lip service to the concept and showed no sense of urgency over the matter. The court had on December 2, 1999 issued a 12-point directive aimed at separation of judiciary from executive. In 81 months since then, time extension was sought by the government 22 times. Finally on 20 October last year the supreme court rejected the plea for time extension and wanted to be informed by the government about any progress on separation. Significantly, the judiciary issued the contempt of court rules against 13 bureaucrats for wilful procrastinating in implementation of court directives. (As the separation proposes to clip the wings of irresponsible bureaucracy, it is not expected that the bureaucracy as a whole will be very enthusiastic about the issue). The court also issued rule against four top bureaucrats on April 3, last. It should be noted that these rules were issued after all the time extensions were exhausted and further extension was rejected.
On Sunday the full bench of the appellate division heard the proceedings on the contempt case for three-and-half hours and decided that the next hearing would take place on November 12, that is, after the present alliance government’s tenure is over. The minister for law and parliamentary affairs Moudud Ahmed claims that four sets of rules on judicial service have been framed and the court directive has almost been implemented except for the fact that amendments to the Code of Criminal Procedure are yet to be carried out. However, if the court finds that the rules framed by the government are not in accordance with the directive then further delay in implementation may ensue.
Prices: Syndicates at work due to
government inaction or endorsement
With less than even a month left before the Ramadan, there is no indication that prices of essential commodities will be reduced or even contained although the government, as the commerce minister claimed, is about to undertake several initiatives to that end.
Even as traders told a commerce ministry meeting that extortion was behind the rising prices, implying that syndicates had nothing to do with it, finance minister Saifur Rahman, the tsar of the national economy, as reported in this paper on Monday, acknowledged the existence of syndicates although the commerce minister had made such a statement months ago.
While the matter is no revelation, Saifur’s comments once again demonstrate the government’s insincerity towards mitigating public suffering. All this time, since he took over office, commerce minister Hafiz Uddin Ahmed had been pointing fingers at the finance and home ministries proclaiming that those ministries had more weapons to deal with the prices than the commerce ministry. This time it was Saifur’s turn to point fingers. He said prices could not be controlled solely by fiscal means. But as yet there have been no efforts to bring in the home ministry in an effort to discipline the syndicates or bring them to book.
Saifur also criticised the trading corporation for its inability to monitor the market. While his criticism implies that Saifur expects the corporation to function better, it should be pointed out that this institution, which we believe is a crucial tool for the government, has been rendered dysfunctional as a result of the very neoliberal market-oriented economic policies that Saifur has espoused during both his tenures as finance minister. Hafiz, however, has stated several times that the trading corporation would be reactivated, which we believe should happen and as soon as possible.
As the price situation stands right now, it all comes down to syndicates and the ball, as far as that is concerned, is conveniently in the home ministry’s court. And the home ministry is even more conveniently silent on this issue. Meetings and discussions at ministries regarding essentials’ prices, although repeatedly stress upon the home ministry’s role, seldom include representatives from that ministry. Till now ministers, even those as powerful and influential as Saifur, have only restricted themselves to making suggestions that the responsibility of bringing those behind the cartels to justice, rested upon the home ministry. But there have not really been any concrete directives yet.
The entire affair smacks of foul play and involvement of too many powerful quarters at their job with tacit approval of the government with the result that the syndicates get away scot-free. If that is not the reason, then one must conclude that the government has no intentions whatsoever to contain the prices and bring them down to a reasonable level. In fact the prices have actually increased further, with the Ramadan due. In either case, inaction or endorsement, the government remains culpable for letting public suffering continue.
The Plutonic myth and truth
The International Astronomical Union at a meeting in Prague on August 24 stripped off the planet status of Pluto. But the decision of IAU was not welcomed universally. It sparked hot debate around the world. Many have termed the definition sloppy, making instance of bad science. Moreover, the way the decision was taken was also questioned. Less than 5 per cent of the world’s astronomers voted. Some 2,500 astronomers from 75 nations attended the conference, while only about 300 took part in vote. Owen Gingerich, a historian and astronomer emeritus at Harvard, called the new definition ‘confusing and unfortunate’. Other astronomers criticised the definition as ambiguous, writes Dr Binoy Barman
God Pluto, forgive us! We could not hold you up on the sky, over our head. We sent you back to the underworld, your original place, where you had ever been reigning. You are banished as you can’t any more hold a candle to your other fellow gods—Mercury, Earth, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, our scientists say. Your undersized celestial body, with staggering movement, fails to impress our scientists. Indeed, the naïve humans have played with your position. Please, don’t inflict your wrath upon them!
After the International Astronomical Union at a meeting in Prague on August 24 stripped off the planet status of Pluto, many have been taken by surprise and turned nostalgic. The astronomers’ decision readily took the wondering mind off to the classical myth pertaining to the powerful god Pluto. The ninth and outermost planet of the solar system, discovered by American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh in 1930, was named after the Roman god Pluto, the ruler of the underworld. Whenever people discerned the planet in the sky through telescope or gazed at its image in planetarium or read about it in books, they remembered the god, with awe and respect. He established his throne in human mind. Now, when he has been dethroned from the sky, I wonder, will he also fade away from the human mind?
According to Roman myth, Pluto is the son of Saturn (Cronus in Greek) and he has two other siblings—Neptune and Jupiter, the gods of water and air respectively. These three were saved from the devouring mouth of their father, who ate up all other children. Hence the Romans believed that soil, water and air, represented by Pluto, Neptune and Jupiter, would not be consumed by time, represented by Saturn. These things are eternal.
God of death and grave, Pluto is known as Hades in Greek mythology. As the myth goes, Pluto abducted Proserpina (Persephone in Greek), after Cupid, commanded by Venus, threw arrow at him. Arrow-hit, Pluto came out from the volcano Etna with four black horses. He found Proserpina at the fountain of Aretusa, where she was playing with some nymphs and plucking flowers. He took her away to the underworld and married her. Proserpina became the queen of the underworld, a life-death-rebirth deity.
But her mother Ceres (Demeter in Greek), the goddess of cereals or of the earth, frantically searched for her, all in vain. Angry, she stopped the growth of fruits and vegetables, severely blighting the nature. She refused to go back to Mount Olympus and started walking on the Earth, leaving a trail of desert. Worried, Jupiter sent Mercury asking his brother Pluto to free Proserpina. Pluto agreed, but before letting her go, he made her eat six pomegranate seeds with an obligation that she would have to live six months of each year with him, and stay the rest with her mother. It is said, when Proserpina comes to her mother, the earth is decorated with welcoming flowers, but when she goes back to Hades, it loses the lustre.
Pluto was also regarded by the Romans as the god of wealth (gold, silver and other subterranean resources). His name gave rise to the Plutonic Theory of earth’s creation. According to the theory, the earth was formed due to intense heat inside. The idea is contrasted with the Neptunian Theory, which states that the formation of the earth was caused by the agency of water.
This is all myth. But what does our science say about Pluto? According to scientific data, Pluto orbits the sun at an average distance of 5,906,380,000 kilometres (3,670,050,000 miles), taking 247.9 earth years to complete a single circuit. What is peculiar with Pluto is that its orbital plane is a whole 17 degrees off the horizontal plane taken by the eight other planets. In addition, its path around the sun is so egg-shaped that it runs inside the orbit of Neptune. These features made the planet an odd man out. Pluto, the cosmic
underdog, has three moons: Charon, Nix and Hydra.
Astronomers have laboured without a universal definition of a planet since well before the time of Copernicus, who proved that the earth revolves around the sun.The experts gathering in Prague burst into applause when a guideline for defining heavenly bodies was passed.
The IAU made a clear definition of what planet is. According to the definition, a planet must have three characteristics: firstly, it will orbit the sun; secondly, it will be big enough for its own gravity to take the shape of a ball; and thirdly, it will clear the neighbourhood around its orbit. Pluto falls short of fulfilling the three criteria, more or less.
The definition restricts membership in the elite cosmic club to the eight classical planets, excluding dinky Pluto from the strata. The resolution marks eight worlds from Mercury to Neptune as ‘planets’. Pluto and other round objects, which have not cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit and is not a satellite, have been identified as ‘dwarf planets’. And all other objects orbiting the sun have been classified as ‘small solar system bodies’.
But the decision of IAU was not welcomed universally. It sparked hot debate around the world. Many have termed the definition sloppy, making instance of bad science. Moreover, the way the decision was taken was also questioned. Less than 5 per cent of the world’s astronomers voted. Some 2,500 astronomers from 75 nations attended the conference, while only about 300 took part in vote. Owen Gingerich, a historian and astronomer emeritus at Harvard, called the new definition ‘confusing and unfortunate’. Other astronomers criticised the definition as ambiguous.
Some have found linguistic contradiction in the terms of IAU. That a dwarf planet is not a planet sounds contradictory. If a raincoat is still a coat, and a cell phone is still a phone, why isn’t a dwarf planet still a planet? It is indeed a thorny question about semantics, which remains to be answered by the decision-makers.
The decision has been billed as a victory of scientific reasoning over historic and cultural influences. It is a scientific fact. Science is always on progress, making its way clear through the haze of past. New discoveries change the older decisions. Powerful new telescopes coupled with advanced technology are breaking through the mysteries of the solar system and beyond.
The scientists as well as common people took much interest in the bizarre look and behaviour of Pluto. On January 19 this year, the United States launched an unmanned spacecraft, New Horizons, which is due to fly by Pluto in 2015. It carries some ashes of Tombaugh, the discoverer of the solar system’s ninth planet, who died in January 1997. NASA, however, said Pluto’s downgrade would not affect its $700 million New Horizons spacecraft mission, aimed to unearth more of its secrets.
The rearrangement of the planetary hierarchy has caused deep confusion among the public. Many have been shocked by the decision. Downgrading the ninth rock from the sun in historic new galactic guidelines has far-reaching impacts on scientific literature. All the science textbooks read at schools, colleges and universities have to be rewritten with relevant correction about Pluto. It involves huge time and money. Besides, the planetarium arrangement all over the world will also have to be changed in the light of new scientific reality.
We, the Bengalis, have memorised the names of nine planets (‘Naba graha’ with Sanskrit lexeme). Now the children will learn the eight planets (‘Asta graha’) from their lessons of science and geography books. It will appear as an onerous job on part of the Bangladesh Textbook Board authorities to revise and rewrite schoolbooks, reshaping notions about space topography.
The decision of the authoritative sky-gazing community has also generated a bit of humour around. The ‘ganaks’ or the fortune-tellers, who set up an intimate connection between astronomy and astrology, have been thrown into bewilderment. They have been uncertain with their business. When they will consider the positions of the planets and miss something, how will they arrive at the accurate (?) decision about the fate of a person? I see little scope for horoscope to stand right.
Pluto is no longer a planet, but Pluto is not dead. God Pluto, you descend from Heaven to Hell. You are only detached from living human affairs. This is a ‘dead’ reality. Man’s play with your fate has come to an end. Live happily with Proserpina forever. Virgil will be singing in your praise for the posterity. Erased from the astronomers’ book, you will still be surviving through Iliad and Odyssey, in the shadowy realm of myth.
The writer is senior subeditor of New Age. He may be contacted at: binoy_barman@yahoo.com.
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