Editorial
Private universities must come
under regulations
The UGC should have acted of their own accord by checking the credentials of private universities. But it had to be reminded and so even if belatedly, it is hoped the commission will make a foolproof verification of the claims and capabilities of the private universities whose number has kept on growing. The private universities came into the field about 15 years ago and were welcomed in so far as they purported to help the cause of higher education. Many of them make lofty claims to tempt students but whether these claims are eventually justified or not has become a big poser of recent times. Although the number of these universities has exceeded 50 long before, it was recently revealed when a series of scandals broke that many of them do not deserve to be called university at all. What some of them most boldly parade to make their degrees seem valuable is their supposed affiliation with such and such prestigious institutions in foreign countries. Many students and guardians fall for this kind of advertisement, only to be disillusioned later.
According to a report in yesterday’s New Age, the education ministry has asked the UGC to take steps to make registration mandatory for those institutions claiming to be branches of foreign universities. The report further says that the ministry also wrote to the commission that these institutions are to be brought under a policy regime. It is not difficult to ascertain how far the claims of a link to foreign universities is genuine by making a reference to those universities. Our missions abroad can help.
Making false or exaggerated claims of affiliation to foreign institutions is not the only transgression committed by these merchants of higher education. Last month the cumulative ills of the spurious private universities led to violent outbursts of students and the lid was blown off the monumental irregularities committed by some of them. It was then revealed that some universities were running postgraduate courses without UGC’s approval and that many had no government-approved VC. In short, there is no supervision and accountability and chaos is prevailing. As for the quality of education in these institutions, sometime ago the UGC chairman himself gave a telling picture when he said that performance of many students was deplorable. The UGC’s monitoring must be intensified and it should be given legal and executive teeth.
We must concede that there are noble exceptions and the best ones among the private universities complete the courses on time and permit no indiscipline. Kudos to those few. But they too will have to broaden their academic programme and their curricula cannot remain confined to Computer Science and Business if they truly want to function like a university. And then there is the question of fees. Private universities are all run like private enterprises on profit basis although we expect these universities to be backed by charitable foundations, grants and endowments so that they may be able to promote education without the compulsion to maximise earnings.
Agreeing that some half a dozen or so private universities are performing well, it has to be noted at the same time that no outstanding scholar or researcher from these institutions has yet been heard of and the top students almost never opt for them. This shows something more is lacking.
Prices are going up, up and up
Prices of essentials keep rising without any sign of abatement. Sugar price which reached all time peak of Taka 60 a few months ago continues to hover around that peak. Mosur dal, the common variety of lentil consumed by the rich and poor alike, is selling at taka 68 a kilogram, literally a two-fold increase over two years. Even prices of different varieties of rice kept rising slowly from month to month. As far as the low-income people are concerned, meat and fish have gone beyond their means and they had to rely almost wholly on vegetables and now vegetable prices are rising to unprecedented heights. Potato is selling at taka 17 a kg, which is twice the price in this season last year. And most other vegetables are also much dearer. Onion, bean, tomato, bitter gourd are selling at exorbitant prices. The price of green chilli has doubled and is selling at Taka 120 a kilogram while price of red chilli has increased significantly.
The trend of price rise caught on around three years ago and the rise has since been nearly steady. A comparison with last year's price level will show how exorbitant are the rises. Public suffering is matched by government inaction. No other subject perhaps affects the common people's well-being as directly as prices of essentials. That is why government's inaction on prices looks so strange and bewildering. The media has been highlighting the phenomenon ever since. It has been shown that the abnormal hikes are not due to operation of economic forces but intrusive factors are responsible, like price manipulation by profiteering syndicates, speculators with possible connection in high places, and finally extortionists. Apparently the government did not deal with any of these and sought to explain away price hike on various pleas. And finally the commerce minister said a few weeks earlier that he had no responsibility to control prices. The price manipulators thus received an indirect encouragement and a fresh round of price hike followed. The public enemies who capitalise on miseries of the common people have thus found that they have never had so good. And the people keep groaning under the crushing burden.
SUNDAY COLUMN
Mayhem in Mumbai
Hasna Abdul Hye
Pakistan has condemned the 'terrorist attack' in Mumbai. But if a link is found between the 'terrorists' who carried out the heinous bomb attacks and the Kashmiri militant groups, fingers will inevitably be pointed at Pakistan, if not for commission at least for omission. It will be criticised for the failure to rein in militant groups who have their sanctuary in Pakistan-held Kashmir. For Pakistan, therefore, it is not enough to condemn the 'terrorists', they have to take concrete measures to ensure that the 'terrorists' do not use the soil in their part of Kashmir for any purpose. A solution to the Kashmir dispute cannot be said to have begun without stopping cross-border terrorism. The mayhem in Mumbai has caught the Indian government off guard, making it slightly nervous. But the blasts have put the spotlight on Pakistan asking it to come clean through both words and deed.
Shock and outrage are not enough to convey the feelings and reactions over the grisly carnage that took place in Mumbai on 11 July. The death toll of 200 and hundreds injured make the mayhem one of the worst of terrorist attacks anywhere in recent years. The series of bomb blasts that took place within a span of twenty minutes in two railway stations indicate the premeditated and orchestrated nature of the barbaric attacks. Only demented and devilish minds could plan and carry out such diabolical acts targeted at fellow humans. In their cold-blooded approach and total indifference to the lives of the innocent victims the perpetrators have exceeded the most heinous of crimes committed by denizens of the underworld. By their utter insensitivity and total disregard for the safety and security of human beings, the terrorists have forfeited any claim to be considered as human, even as the lowest of the low. They belong to a species who live in the dark and worship the Satan. They are the glaring embodiment of evil and are a threat to humanity. No word is strong and vehement enough to condemn their viciousness and cruelty.
The victims of the series of bomb blasts in Mumbai were ordinary workers and employees who commute everyday, to and from Mumbai. They are innocent people and have no grudge to any group, nor have any ill feelings towards any ideology or cause. They were pre-occupied in the daily grind of eking out a living for them and their families. On each of the victims depended half a dozen or more persons for their living. By snatching away their lives, thousands have been made helpless and destitute. Many of them may not be able to salvage their lives from the wreckage caused by the bomb blasts. If the loss of lives of the dead and the agony of the injured are cause for shock and anger, the sudden collapse of the life support system of their dependents is heart-rending. Deaths and injuries on such a large scale would be a matter of profound grief and shock anywhere in the world. In a country where millions are engaged in the grim struggle of life, the terror attacks cannot but be seen as barbaric and inhuman because of the short and long term effects on those left behind. The family members of the dead will carry the burden of the loss for the rest of their lives because of the long lasting impact. Public in general may forget or faintly remember the cruelty of the evil incarnate, but for the survivors and the family members the deaths will be a constant reminder of what they lost in terms of love, affection and material support. It is this after-effects of atrocities and mass killing that make them unforgettable in a developing country where multitudes are engaged in a grim struggle for existence. No consolation, even compensation, would be enough to bring back the happiness and confidence of the bereaved because the loss they have suffered is irreparable. To make matters worse, perhaps almost no assistance will be given to help them tide over the crisis that befell when their only earning member died or became maimed permanently. Forced to beg and borrow, many of them will live sub-human life. It is necessary to think at some length about the impact of the massacre on the lives of those who were dependent on the victims because this is the ultimate and long lasting damage done by the crime.
No group has claimed responsibility for the massacre of innocent lives on 11 July in Mumbai. But one can speculate about their identity and enquire into possible motives. Given the record of similar bomb blasts in India, these exercises may not be way off the mark and therefore, considered as wild guesses. To begin with, the nature and manner of carrying out the series of bomb blasts indicate a highly organised group active in and around Mumbai. They could not have come from outside and remain incognito. Nor could they carry out the attacks simultaneously if the network was not close-knit and well established locally. Secondly, the groups are highly trained in using explosives. The training might have been given outside Mumbai, either in India or in another country. Thirdly, the group members appear to have well established channels of fund and explosives. These may have sources outside India. As regards motive, it is evident that the victims were not targeted for any grudge or anger against them. They were chosen at random to create the maximum of shock and panic. Through the shocking impact the perpetrators may have sought to make the government of India nervous and shaky. Continuing on this line of reasoning one may conclude that failure to stop this type of attacks may force the government to make concessions to the demands of the terrorists. This line of argument and speculative reasoning leads to the question: what is the demand of the terrorists?
From general description one may now be more specific about the terror group which carried out the dastardly and bloody bomb attacks. In India there are at present several underground groups waging guerrilla war as part of insurgency and engage in acts of sabotage. The first is the Maoists, more popularly known as the Naxalites. They are active in a few states including Orissa, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh and the low grade hit and run clashes in these places are going on for decades. But the Naxalites hardly ever choose urban centres and installations; their presence, as well as operations, are confined to rural areas. It is highly unlikely that they would choose an urban centre like Mumbai, far less crowded commuter trains, to carry out armed attacks. The target of choice for them has been police stations, government offices and jails. Knowing very well that commuter trains in Mumbai carry middle-class and the poor who work in low paid jobs, they would never think of making them targets. If they were to do such foolish and senseless acts that would not further their cause a bit. Furthermore, they follow the classic pattern of guerrilla warfare practised by Mau Tse Tung, which is to establish stranglehold in rural areas and gradually encircle the urban settlements. The Mumbai attacks do not conform to that strategy.
The second armed group (groups) waging guerrilla war and involved in insurgency are the militants in Assam (ULFA) and Tripura. Their armed attacks are confined to the eastern region and they have not ventured out to other states, except perhaps for sanctuary. To make maximum propaganda, they choose armed forces on duty as targets and the objective seems to be to weaken the government control in the area, which they hope will help them to realise their demand. They have not targeted civilian populations for this purpose, though in the past an ultra-nationalist group took on the settlers to drive them away from their land. The insurgents in Assam and Tripura are not likely to choose an urban target in a far-away place like Mumbai. Not only this will backfire as a strategy, the difficulties in logistics in carrying out an operation in a far-flung area will discourage them. They can, therefore, be ruled out as a possible group responsible for the attacks. This leaves out a group who carried out bomb blasts in 1993 in Mumbai in the wake of the Babri mosque demolition. Since there has been no such act of provocation, the group, thought mostly to belong to the underworld of Mumbai, cannot be linked to the carnage that took place in the two railway stations simultaneously.
Suspicion has now centred on Kashmiri militants fighting New Delhi’s rule in disputed Kashmir. They have been blamed for several bomb attacks in India in the past. The Mumbai blasts came just hours after the suspected Kashmiri militants killed seven people, six of them tourists, in a series of grenade attacks in Srinagar, India-held Kashmir's main city. The two main militant groups have denied any responsibility for the attacks but given their record this denial is not likely to wash well with the authorities and the general public. In the absence of any definite proof the authorities will refrain from making any formal accusation but high in their list of suspects will be those two militant organizations and the main tack of the investigations will follow this lead.
Supposing the two Kashmiri militant groups are found to be involved what can be their gain and loss? The gain obviously will be to let it be known to the authorities that they can attack anywhere that they choose. But by asserting this capacity they are not likely to bend the government to their will and get their demand accepted. Rather, this type of attacks will make the authorities more determined and uncompromising. Their control and repression in India-held Kashmir will become even more intense and ruthless. Kashmiris in India-held Kashmir will live with greater sense of fear and uncertainty. India has turned its part of Kashmir into a garrison and this militarisation will only increase in tempo and scale, making return to normalcy impossible. If the Kashmiri militants are found to be behind the Mumbai bomb blasts their cause will suffer serious set-back as they will be seen as worst of all terrorists. It is one thing to fight against armed elements for a cause and entirely a different matter to target civilians. Not only there is demotion from 'insurgents' to 'terrorists', the bomb blasts may also trigger angry backlash imperilling the lives of the minority community in India. The authorities are trying their best to prevent this repercussion and have appealed for calm. The public also has shown great patience and equanimity and going about their daily routine with courage and fortitude. This is most laudable.
Pakistan has condemned the 'terrorist attack' in Mumbai. But if a link is found between the 'terrorists' who carried out the heinous bomb attacks and the Kashmiri militant groups, fingers will inevitably be pointed at Pakistan, if not for commission at least for omission. It will be criticised for the failure to rein in militant groups who have their sanctuary in Pakistan-held Kashmir. For Pakistan, therefore, it is not enough to condemn the 'terrorists', they have to take concrete measures to ensure that the 'terrorists' do not use the soil in their part of Kashmir for any purpose. A solution to the Kashmir dispute cannot be said to have begun without stopping cross-border terrorism. The mayhem in Mumbai has caught the Indian government off guard, making it slightly nervous. But the blasts have put the spotlight on Pakistan asking it to come clean through both words and deed. Too much blood is being spilt targeting innocent civilians in the name of freedom and right of self-determination. This has to stop immediately because no cause is strong enough to desecrate the inviolability of innocent life. Every country that can contribute to the restoration of sanity and adoption of peaceful negotiation must do its utmost. Time is running out for this deterrent act.
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