Painful punishment

The verdict of the 26-year-old Bhopal gas tragedy is finally out. And what is the punishment? Two years in jail and that too is bailable, along with an apologetic compensation for the negligence in one of the biggest manmade disasters in a century. And after all that, the high and mighty still move scotfree. This has become almost of every big and small verdict in this country where the victim suffers and the convict flees. Be it Jessica murder case or Ruchika, the law took its course only after a trial by the media. One still remembers a hard hitting headline in a newspaper saying ‘No one killed Jessica’. The media hit hard on the lower court’s verdict and the high court had to take a suo moto cognizance on the matter. The accused, who were acquitted had to face another trial and were thereafter sentenced with much severe punishment. But this was a high profile case in the national capital. But how many like Jessica get justice in ordinary circumstances? Well, the verdict in the Bhopal gas tragedy has made it clear that being poor in this country is a curse. People said the era of kings was brutal when they used to watch duels (a game where two people fight and one dies in the end) for their entertainment but I don’t think it can be more brutal than this where 20,000 lives have been killed with Rs 5 lakh compensation and the perpetrators get away with a bailable a two-year jail term.

War for Tamil hearts

Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa may have pledged to strive for a settlement acceptable to all Tamils in Lanka, but that does not seem to have silenced his detractors in India and back home in Sri Lanka. This is the first official visit of the Lankan president after cleaning up the three-decade-old LTTE and the killing its chief V Prabhakaran last year. Prabhakaran could not garner much support from India due to his anti-India policy, but his cause still seems to strike a chord here, and is still alive in the hearts of many Indians. At least the big divide in the Indian entertainment industry over organising a cine award function – the International Indian Film Academy awards — in the island makes us believe so. Bollywood stars, including IIFA brand ambassador and superstar Amitabh Bachchan, chose to miss the show. Various Tamil groups urged the senior Bachchan to boycott the Colombo awards ceremony as they marched from his Pratiksha bungalow to his Jalsa residence in Mumbai last month.This is the first time in 11 years that Big B kept himself away from the annual award function. Bachchan wasn’t the only to give the show a miss. The event was insipid as Bollywood biggies like Shahrukh Khan, Aishwarya Rai and many others kept away from the show after the South Indian Film Chamber of Commerce threatened to boycott films of Bollywood stars attending the event. The event has already drawn the ire of the Tamil film fraternity, with popular figures like Rajnikanth, Kamal Hassan, Vijay, Ajith and Surya refusing to be associated in anyway with the IIFA. This displeasure and divide over the issue also propelled the Lankan president to keep away from the event after Bollywood stars did not make an appearance at a brunch hosted by him at Temple Trees (his official residence). Rajapaksa may have salvaged his nation from decades-old militancy, but is still found stumbling in the ruins of Tamil legacy. May be this is the time to wage another “war” to win Tamil hearts.

'Left' in ruins...

It was furious red faced communists standing in the ruins of the rich left legacy on Wednesday as the verdict of West Bengal municipal elections made it clear that the change had arrived. Mamata’s second thumping victory within a year in the communist bastion has made it clear that the Left parties might well be in the twilight of their politics. And the West Bengal story is not just about that state, it is about a diminishing Left era in India. The communists have been ruling in the land of Tagore since the late 1970's and no party could break the record. May be, the Left lost the script, remained complacent or just refused to re-discover itself as it happened to communism elsewhere in the world. But the rout of the communist party may not portend well in the larger context of Indian polity. The communists were a great balancing force in the United Progressive Alliance, though they were considered an irritant who would always oppose everything progressive. It should not be forgotten that they played a vital role in making the National Rural Employment Guarantee programme a reality. The municipal election, which was seen as a semi final in West Bengal before the assembly elections next year, seems to have given Mamata Banerjee led Trinmool Congress a good chance to conquer the 'red fort' after more than three decades. The communist party, which was build on an anti-Congress theme decades later backed a Congress led government. Was this dilution in ideology or desperation to remain close to power that they lost, it is difficult to say.