Notify Majithia Recommendations

Parmanand Pandey

The Confederation of All India Newspaper and News Agency Employee Organisations organised today i.e. 24th March 2011 an impressive demonstration outside Shram Shakti Bhawan, situated at Rafi Marg of New Delhi for immediate notification of the recommendations of the Majithia Wage Board for newspaper and news agency employees. Shram Shakti is the headquarters of Union Ministry of Labour and also of the Ministry of Power. I along with scores of friends of newspaper industry participated in the demonstration in the capacity of the Secretary General of Indian Federation of Working Journalists (IFWJ).

The Wage Board submitted its report to the Government of India on 31st of December last year. The Wage Board report is although highly flawed, inadequate and unsatisfactory for employees yet; the Government is taking inexplicably so much time to notify is really intriguing.

Wage Board is constituted as per the provision of section 13 of the Working Journalists Act for the revision of Wages. But now the Working Journalists Act itself has become outdated and redundant because it covers only the print journalists. In 1955, when this Act was enacted the only electronic medium was All India Radio, which was under government control and its employees have been entitled to government pay scales. But the situations have completely changed after 1990. Television channels have proliferated and now web portals are becoming extremely popular. Therefore, the need is to bring them within the ken of Working Journalists Act.

No wonder, that the Majithia Wage Board may perhaps be last Wage Board because of two reasons. The primary one is that the employees in newspapers are now appointed on the contract basis. The number of regular employees is therefore shrinking very rapidly.

In a few years from now, there will possibly be no regular employee in most of newspapers. Secondly; most of the newspapers have decoupled and outsourced their production and distribution departments. Only the editorials and administrations are being kept by them. Because of the dwindling number of employees, there are hardly any unions in media industry to raise their voice in favour of the employees.

In the name of liberalisation the government is also moving towards the policy of laissez faire. This presents a bleak picture for the working class. It is, nevertheless, hoped that government must still be having some sense of shame and will not further delay the notification of the recommendations to benefit the newspaper employees, whose number is, no doubt, now very small.

Alok, You Will Always Be With Us.

By: Parmanand Pandey

Alok Tomar, a well known journalist died young. Killer cancer snatched him on the day of Holi festival, which is celebrated with joy and gaiety soaked in colours. If I am not mistaken, it was the most liked festival of Alok, which gelled well with personality, affability and temperament.

Alok and I were selected in the first batch of Jansatta newspaper in 1983. Both of us were in twenties; he was in early and I was in late twenties.

He was a vivacious, talkative, full of energy and always impatient. Although he was a junior reporter but was the best in the reporting section of the newspaper in the sense that he had wonderful command over the language and had assiduously developed inimitable style, which was highly compelling and absorbing. No body could afford to ignore his stories largely because of his engrossing presentation. It is an altogether different matter that his stories used to be laced with heavy spicy doses. His imaginations often overtook the factual realities and this was the reason; sometimes it was difficult for ordinary readers to sift the facts from fiction. In the process facts, in general; were the casualty.

Alok was very well-read journalist, a quality that is difficult to find among most of the journalists. He was helpful and humane. But in certain respects he was very much like his mentor Prabhash Joshi; who was more like a subaltern propagandist of his master than a journalist. A woolly headed and boastful Prabhash Joshi had no qualms for self respect before his highly corrupt, dishonest and exploitative master Ram Nath Goenka. He had no hesitation in bending backward to please that cunning and clever Lala.

Alok used to narrate about his high connections with people from politics, film, literature, bureaucracy, media and industry. At one point of time he had shown some interest in trade unionism also. In fact, both of us had contested elections to the Executive Committee of Delhi Union of Journalists in 1985. Both of us were new to Delhi journalists' circle; yet we both won the election. This was something remarkable in the sense that we had contested the Union's election for the first time; we were from the same newspaper and both of us had no clout, nevertheless, our victory margin was very comfortable.

We had our differences during the strike in Indian Express in 1987. He brazenly sided with Ram Nath Goenka's cohorts led by Prabhash Joshi and I vehemently opposed them. As a result of which, I lost my job of the Roving Special Correspondent. He was like most of other journalists with strike breakers. However, after sometime he also fell foul with the wily management for the reasons not know to me, and had to leave the Jansatta newspaper. To the best of memory; except three journalists; me, Achche Lal Prajapati and the Late Sujanpuria all journalists of Indian Express Group had gone to the management in sackcloth and ashes.

Alok was very jovial, innovative, spin master journalist and wordsmith. It is very difficult to find a person and journalist like him. It is, no doubt, a huge loss to journalism. May his soul rest in peace! May God give enough strength to his wife, daughter and the whole host of his relatives and admirers to bear this irreparable loss! Adieu Alok.

JAPAN WILL, NO DOUBT, RISE LIKE PHOENIX

Parmanand Pandey

The enormity of death and destruction by horrific Tsunami and trembler in Japan is heartrending, to say the least. It is worst tragedy in the known history in terms of loss of men and material. It has again made us feel that man is helpless before the nature. Every scientific development has been claimed to be a victory of man over nature. Harnessing of the natural resources has been gloated over as the feat of man. But no modern man has ever imagined that the nature can be so ferocious and furious as to humble the man in a trice.

In fact, every natural calamity must spur the scientists to unravel the mysteries of the nature's boons and banes. We have been hearing for quite long time that very soon the science would be able to forecast the earthquakes, hurricanes, floods and other devastating incidents but that is still a mirage. It, however, does not mean that man should sit on his haunches and make no efforts for scientific inventions. It is said that the nature will manifest its wrath in many ways if it is disturbed beyond certain limits. But how to know the limits and contain them is another task before the scientists?

My heart goes out for the brave, courageous, sincere and industrious people of Japan in this hour of untold sufferings. I deeply mourn the death of hundreds of innocent people, whose lives have been snatched suddenly by the killer Tsunami. May their soul rest in peace and May God give strength to Japanese to rise again from the ashes like phoenix and continue to remain the world leader!

This Tsunami and earthquake must serve as a wake-up call for other countries. India as a developing country does not have the state-of-art technology for the fool-proof protection of her nuclear power plants. The example of Fukosima should be taken as an eye-opener and the safety of nuclear power-plants needs to be revisited. India being a densely populated country can ill afford the havoc of radiation emanating from the nuclear plants. The noxious gas leak of Bhopal in 1984 took the lives thousands of people and that reminds us that many generations of survivors would have to bear to brunt of that calamity; which was caused by the carelessness of the people who were manning the factory of Union Carbide.

Another important point is reconsideration of the nuclear liability bill. God forbid if something untoward happens the sufferers would get little compensation, which needs to be drastically revised and enhanced.

Quashing of CVC's appointment is laudable

Parmanand Pandey

The Supreme Court of India by striking down the appointment of the Central Vigilance Commissioner has done a commendable job in the public interest. It has retrieved the constitutional dignity to a large extent, which has been going down very rapidly in the recent years.

Some people say that Mr. Thomas should have resigned long back from the post of CVC to avoid mortification to the government, particularly the Prime Minster and the Home Minister, who were the members of the appointment committee. But then that would not have set the controversy at rest. Therefore, I think that Mr. Thomas has done, although unwittingly, well by not resigning from the post and thereby allowing the Supreme Court to settle the law.

The Supreme Court has also done a good job by declaring, among other points, that only (a) bureaucrats should not be considered for the post of CVC; other qualified and persons of eminence should also be taken in account, (b) that the three member committee should not exercise only 'veto power', member disagreeing with the proposal should provide the reasons for the same. So if Mr. Thomas had rendered his resignation in the face of public outcry; the country would have been deprived of the transparent measures to be adopted for future CVCs. Thus, it is, in fact, a sort of a blessing in disguise.

My personal opinion is that the government has adopted all sorts of foolish, cheap and illogical tactics to defend the appointment of CVC. It got its Attorney General to say that complete files about Mr. Thomas were not put up before the committee consisting of the Prime Minister, the Home Minister and the Leader of Opposition, which was debunked by the Home Minister Shri Chidambaram, the next day. Thus high constitutional authority like the Attorney General had to eat humble pie. Even otherwise also the palm oil case, in which Mr. Thomas was involved, was so controversial that every conscientious person was in the know of it.

Needless to say, that in our country the constitution is Supreme. All organs, be it judiciary, legislature or executive derive their powers from the constitution. Judiciary is supposed to keep check on other organs, if they go adrift or do something unconstitutional. If the judiciary fails to perform its assigned duties properly, it would send a body blow to the constitutionalism.

Therefore, this verdict needs to be welcomed.

Strike by Lawyers Can Have No Logic

Parmanand Pandey

I have always been of the view that lawyers have no legal, ethical or social right to go on strike unless, of course, something egregious has happened which has bearings on the safety, security of the people and the country.

Now we hear that lawyers in Uttar Pradesh have gone on agitation for reasons which no sensible persons can justify. Let me hasten to add that I have no love for the present government in Uttar Pradesh. To be fair and frank, I have not taken any benefit as a lawyer from Uttar Pradesh government, at any point of time either by the present or previous dispensations. Therefore, I am under no obligation of any body.

I have been informed from my sources that lawyers are demanding that after the age of sixty every lawyer should be given a decent pension benefit. The State in India is known as a 'Welfare State'. The duty of the state is to see that nobody suffers from hunger of deprivation. When I use the word 'nobody' it includes lawyers also; but it does not mean that lawyers should form a different class of beneficiaries. If the demands of lawyers were to be accepted then why not the same benefits be extended to others like; private doctors, chartered accountants, labourers and shopkeepers etc.? After all, there contribution to the society is by no means less than the lawyers.

What is really shocking is that the so-called agitation of the Bar Council of Uttar Pradesh has been hijacked by some political goons, who have their own personal axe to grind. In a highly politicised atmosphere, where most of the lawyers owe allegiance to one party or other, it is impossible for the Bar Council to take any dispassionate decision. It would, therefore, be in the fitness of things that the State Bar Council should immediately withdraw the agitation and start a debate on its charter of demands, which it has presented to the state government. Demand for some subvention is alright, which is given to journalists and other professionals from time to time but the strike or agitation without any consensus of the legal community, resorting to violent agitation is highly condemnable. It is the time that the Bar Council understood its prime responsibilities otherwise; it would cause irreparable damage to its image.