Death of a Shyster Subroto Roy

The Late SubrotoRoy was, no doubt, a genius, who set a new record of fraud and forgery. Millions of small investors, who were trapped by the greed and inducements of Subroto Roy; more known as Sahara Sri, never got back their hard-earned savings. Dishonest politicians of all parties had parked their ill-gotten moneywith Subroto Roy, and they vied with each other supporting and even getting close to him. Film actors and actresses used to flaunt their proximity to him. A large number of journalists, who benefitted from the largesse of SubrotoRoy sang peans during his lifetime and even after his death. Many of them did not lag behind in showing their close connections with the king of thuggery.

He was brought to books, thanks to the Supreme Court although he did not leave any stone unturned even dodging the Apex Court. When he was asked to deposit Rs. 24000crores of investors' money to the SEBI along with documents for verification, he sent 132 truckloads containing 32 thousand cartons of documents. Some were real and genuine documents, but most of them were fakes. There was no place for the SEBI to store those documents, so some space was taken on rent. However, another good order was passed by the Supreme Court that the rent amount would be paid only by the Sahara. The SEBI later got the genuine documents digitalized.

It is a general perception among the people that Subroto Roy lived the life of a super king. He is said to have spent Rupees 500 crore on the marriage of his sons, which were attended by who's who of the country. Many bureaucrats, politicians, journalists and industrialists were dying to get the invites to attend his sons' marriages. His presence was found to be in almost all fields including film, journalism, television, real estate etc. but he refused to abide by the labour laws or any other applicable laws in his establishments. He had his own set of laws and demeanour to be observed by the employees in his offices. In a nutshell, his whims and fancies were the laws and the rules.

Surprisingly, even governments succumbed to his crazy ideas. He never implemented the Wage Board recommendations, the Working Journalist Act or the Industrial Disputes Act for the employees of his organisations. As a result of it, some used to receive very high salaries but many of them were denied even their minimum wages. He believed in crushing the trade unions by all tricks of the trade including even by bribing the trade unionists. Every foul means was fair for him. Sycophancy was encouraged like anything by him. What will happen to millions of investors after his death, nobody knows. Corrupt politicians, journalists and bureaucrats are not going to help them. It is only the judiciary which can give some relief, but will the fatigued investors be able to knock on the doors of the judiciary after so many years?

Let SubrotoRoy's soul be in eternal peace and May God never send any such person as Subroto Roy again on this earth to cheat millions!

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Press Council is toothless, how can it bite without strong teeth?

 National Press Day has been celebrated under the auspices of the Press Council of India on the 16^th of November every year since 1995 when it was decided to celebrate it on the day when the Press Council was enacted by the Parliament. It may be mentioned here that the first Press Commission was constituted on 23^rd September 1952 to study the state of affairs of the Press under the Chairmanship of Justice G S Rajyadhyaksha.  Many eminent persons from different streams were its members. It was set up to secure freedom of speech and expression, to curb yellow journalism, sensationalism, malicious attacks on public men, indecency and vulgarity, bias in the presentation of news and lack of responsibility in comment, to inquire about the control, management and ownership, the financial structure as well as other important aspects of the newspaper industry in the country.

  It submitted its report on 14^th July 1954. It made two very important recommendations; one was the enactment of the Working Journalist Act and the other was for the statutory Press Council of India. The Working Journalist Act was enacted in 1955 within a few months of the submission of the Press Commission's report but the Press Council of India came into existence on 16^th November 1966. In those days only the Print medium was in existence. In the name of electronic medium, the government-controlled Akashvani was there but that had nothing to do either with the Working Journalist Act or with the Press Council of India. There was no freedom for Akahvani, it had and even now it has to work as per the  policies framed  by the government 

  To cut a long story short in this year's celebration of National Press Day, the Vice President of India Jagdeep Dhankhar was the guest of honour, who exhorted the Press Council by saying that it was not 'the time to show teeth but a time to bite against those spreading the fake and false news. And the bite must be strong because those who are serving with high ethical standards must be encouraged only by those not doing so being visited with exemplary consequences.’  

  Dhankhar also said that it was the moral duty of the media to tell the truth, nothing but the truth. He cited a recent incident about a newspaper in Telangana publishing that the V-P’s Twitter handle carries a fake photograph of a parliamentary committee. He also cited another incident from the past, when as Governor of West Bengal, he suffered when a senior journalist alleged, he was summoning the Chief Minister of West Bengal to Raj Bhavan every day.

  What is, however, very surprising is that Dhankhar is asking the Press Council not to show its teeth but to bite strongly. It appears that he is blissfully ignorant about the fact that the Press Council of India is a toothless tiger. It has no teeth at all. It can only put moral pressure on the newspapers by either, warning, reprimanding or censuring the erring newspapers or journalists. It has no powers beyond that. It may be stated here that yours truly was also a member of the Press Council for two consecutive terms i.e., for six years. He and his organisation Indian Federation of Working Journalist (IFWJ) has been demanding a complete overhauling of the Press Council of India.

 The first thing that needs to be done is that the Press Council should be converted into the Media Council by the Parliament of Bharat by bringing all genres of media that are Print, Electronic, Web, Digital and social media into its ambit. Then it would be in a position to take note of the errors of all types of media. The second most important thing is that it should have enough powers to take stringent action against the erring defaulters otherwise nobody will care even two hoots for its directions/ orders/ suggestions. 

  The other thing that should be done is to have eminent journalists, trade unionists, literature and law apart from Members of Parliament and other social activists of honesty and credibility in the Press Council. But at present there is hardly any important journalist, who is a member of the Press Council. 

  The biggest crisis that the country is facing today is that of the credibility of media and this can be restored only when the Media Council possesses some powers. It should not only have the teeth to show but strong enough to bite the errants. Today the biggest problem comes from social media, which often indulges in deep fakery with the help of new technology and Artificial Intelligence (AI). The crisis of credibility is more because, social media, operates without any gatekeepers.  The expression ‘fake news’ has never been heard so loudly before as it is these days and social media is the main sinner.

 

Hamas does not Deserve any support for its thrashing

  

   

 Israel and Hamas war started on 7^th October and has already taken the toll of more than 15 thousand human lives. In the past, no friction with Israel has lasted for more than a week but this time it is still continuing despite the passage of nearly six weeks’ time.  In fact, it is no longer a war but a relentless thrashing of the Hamas terrorists and their sympathisers in the Gaza Strip. According to the latest reports almost the entire Gaza Strip has been occupied by Israel’s forces. Hamas terrorists are hiding like rats in the tunnels, which they have constructed mainly under the hospitals to shield themselves. Terrorists are now targeting hospitals, killing innocent people and blaming Israel’s forces to gain sympathy from the world. But no country has till now come forward to join the war against Israel. Even Iran, Lebanon and Pakistan do not have the courage to face the wrath of Israel.

  As a matter of fact, the world can learn a lesson from Israel, which has vowed to completely destroy Hamas. Only a decade ago; India was the centre of terrorist attacks. People were mortally afraid of travelling in trains and buses. Even public places like hotels, bazaars and temples were not spared by the terrorists, most of them were homegrown terrorists and were obviously surviving with the help and support of Pakistan. But presently Pakistan itself has become a bankrupt country and is going across the world with a begging bowl. Although fundamentalist and radical forces in Pakistan provide only bogus verbal support to Hamas, they have neither the courage nor strength to physically provide any help to them. In India, we often see that some people loudmouth to extend support aid to Hamas forgetting the fact that any assistance to it will amount to propping up terrorism, which is a danger to mankind.

There is no doubt that hundreds of innocent people are being killed in this conflict and it will be in the interest of humanity that it is stopped without any further loss of time. The world, particularly those who stand in support of Hamas must prevail upon them to hand over all hostages to Israel otherwise, it is almost certain that it would not stop till their total extermination.

This conflict also points out the abject failure of Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad, which is considered to be the best in the world. Hamas would not have launched an attack on Israel from thin air in a day. Hamas terrorists must have prepared their strategy for months together to launch the massive attack on Israel killing hundreds of innocent people in a few hours’ time but shockingly the Mossad did not have any inkling of it.

There is no gainsaying that terrorism must go lock, stock and barrel. Any sacrifice to liquidate the terrorists will be in the interest of humanity. At the same time, it is also necessary that Palestinians must also be provided all succour and land for their peaceful settlement. This is possible only when every trace of terrorism is fully wiped out and the Islamic countries must desist from sustaining them as some of them like Pakistan, Lebanon and Iran are shamelessly openly bolstering it.  

 70-Hour Work a Week Suggestion is Impractical and Illogical.

INFOSYS Chairman Narayana Murthy has stirred a hornet’s nest by throwing an idea that the working hours of employees and workers should be fixed seventy hours a week. However, a large number of workers, trade unions and even politicians are up against this idea. The opposition has erupted against this stupid idea which he has proposed. It must be mentioned here that there have been agitations across the world in the late 19th century with regard to limiting working hours to eight hours per day for six days a week.

After years of struggle in May 1886, the workers went on for complete strike in support of their demand. Many of them, around two dozen, were killed and suffered violence of various types. Now after nearly 150 years if somebody is advocating for increasing the working of workers from a 48-hour week to 70 hours a week is certainly inhuman, illogical and cruel to say the least. Even in the ‘Occupational Safety, health and Working Code’, which is yet to be promulgated although it has already got the presidential assent after being passed by both houses of Parliament, there is a provision of only 48 hours a week. For journalists, it is only thirty-six a week has been prescribed, which means 144 hours in a month. The only change that has been suggested in the OSH Code is that working hours can be increased to 12 hours a day provided it is four days a week working. Now here are some industrialists who are talking about 70 hours a week of work for the workers in the name of increasing the productivity of the country.

No doubt, increasing production is an important factor but what about the mental and physical health of the working class? 12 hours of work a day means effectively 14 hours a day because it will take at least two hours for a worker to commute from the workplace to his/her dwelling place and vice versa. He/she will have to spend at least one hour to be ready to go to the workplace. Thus, it will be 15 hours in a day. How much time the worker will be able to give to family and attend the household work can be well imagined by anybody.

A worker will have an enormous amount of physical and mental wear and tear resulting in his/her bad health and invitation to a number of diseases. Thus ultimately, what is being thought of as a measure to increasing productivity by enhancing the working hours will be disadvantageous to the working class, the society and the country as a whole. Surprisingly, the illogical and anti-worker opinion/ suggestion of Narayan Murthy has got support from business tycoons like Tech Mahindra’s CP Gurnani and JSW Chairman Sajjan Jindal. In fact, the 70-hour work week would be synonymous with that of running a “sweatshop”.

In India, the primary statutes which talk about working hours are the Factories Act, 1948 (“Factories Act’) and the Minimum Wages Act, 1948 (“Minimum Wages Act”). Both the Acts are fairly uniform as to the upper ceiling of daily and weekly working hours – which are 9 hours and 48 hours respectively. The Factories Act, additionally, entitles each worker to a break of at least half an hour (not more than 5 hours of work should pass before such an interval). Both the Acts further strive to provide overtime compensation at the rate of double the wages for each hour of work undertaken in excess of the threshold of 9 hours. It is imperative to note though - that the applicability of the Factories Act extends only to Factories employing 10 or more persons and where some manufacturing process is carried on; whereas the Minimum Wages Act is majorly applicable over any employment which employs more than 1000 employees in a state.

In so far as all other establishments are concerned, their working is regulated in accordance with the Shops and Establishments Acts of each state. The Karnataka Shops and Commercial Establishments Act, 1961 (“Karnataka Shops Act”) is applicable to all shops and commercial establishments of the state with its provisions pertaining to working hours (both daily and weekly) being no different to the two above-mentioned legislations. Under the Karnataka Shops Act, the spread over, in any case, cannot exceed 12 hours - with the overtime payment of up to 2 extra hours. The same is also the case with the Delhi Shops and Establishments Act, of 1954. Therefore, the sooner this idea of Narayan Murthy is given a go-by, the better for the country. In this age of Technology and Artificial Intelligence, why he is talking about enhancing the working hours of workers defies all logic.