Chowdhry’s ouster, bans marred Pakistan boxing in 2006
A STARTLING corruption scandal involving boxing supremo Anwar Chowdhry, his subsequent ouster as president of International Boxing Association (AIBA) and the life bans on two of country’s top pugilists rocked Pakistan boxing in the year 2006 in which the sport experienced an unprecedented decline.
Contrary to its ever-improving graph in the past when boxers earned several laurels for Pakistan while other sportsmen faltered, the pugilists and the Pakistan Boxing Association (PBF) brought shame and agony in 2006. Chowdhry, one of the country’s most powerful and confident officials, finally met his Waterloo in Santo Domingo in November when he was replaced by Taiwan’s Ching-Kuo Wu as the new AIBA chief. Chowdhry lost his last battle when Wu secured 83 votes against Chowdhry’s 79.
While his unceremonious exit from AIBA was shocking for the followers of the game, it was even more bewildering for long-serving Chowdhry who was hurled out after a 40-year-long association with AIBA including last 20 as its president.
But no matter how shocking it was for Chowdhry, his ouster from AIBA was inevitable. A lot of anger and opposition had been building up for a long time within AIBA and Chowdhry had been facing a barrage of criticism from all over the boxing world for his machinations and manipulation at the international events.
From invitational tournaments organised at home to the Olympic qualifying rounds, Chowdhry was accused of altering results to favour the Pakistani boxers. Most stunning was a disclosure made by Thailand team manager at Karachi’s Olympic qualifiers in 2004 when he accused Chowdhry along with his son-in-law Shakeel Durrani of interchanging the scores — thanks to some clever manipulation techniques at their disposal through the computer technology. It was the same event in which Indian coach Sidhu also raised hue and cry against Chowdhry and the jury for depriving his boxers of a well-deserved victory.
In yet another embarrassing moment after his removal from AIBA, Chowdhry had to admit at a press conference that International Olympic Committee (IOC) chairman Jacques Rogge had rightly raised objections over selection of judges and referees and his much-hyped ‘Chowdhry Scoring System’ which lost its credibility at the international level soon afterwards. It was also revealed that IOC had stopped its grant to AIBA until all the requirements regarding fair judging and refereeing were fulfilled.
But that change in the AIBA hierarchy didn’t come before a series of accusations and revelations that put Chowdhry in an awkward position. Pakistan boxing was jolted in October when AIBA accused Chowdhry, also the chairman of PBF, of financial irregularities.
The 84-year-old Pakistan official was accused of refusing to submit original invoices and supporting documents for the last four years to a Swiss auditing firm ‘Fiduciaire Tucker’ despite being repeatedly asked by AIBA and the firm to do so.
Chowdhry was obviously in an embarrassing situation as his secretary-general, Caner Doganeli also confirmed that the president had indeed violated AIBA’s regulations by refusing to submit the documents.
According to Doganeli, both, the president and secretary-general of AIBA, were required to submit their expenditures along with original invoices for audit on an annual basis. However, in Chowdhry’s case the documents never reached even before the June 30, 2006 deadline for year’s audit.
Just days after the accusations, Chowdhry was once again in a catch-22 situation. He was facing a revolt and stiff resistance from within AIBA ranks on his financial matters. This time charges of corruption were raised against him by one of the AIBA executive committee members Rudel Obreja.
The Romanian official created quite a stir when it was revealed that he had been asking Chowdhry through letters about the source of money deposited in his Zurich-based UBS Bank account despite being a retired individual for the last 20 years.
Not only Obreja questioned the ways and means Chowdhry’s wealth, the official also interrogated on the transfer of $350,000 from UBS to a Karachi bank account maintained by his daughter Sonia Shakeel.
Obreja obviously had some more questions to which Chowdhry and his beloved son-in-law Shakeel Durrani didn’t have any answers. The charge against Chowdhry was: receiving kickbacks from boxing gear manufacturing company — Green Hill which came to fore through an e-mail from Shakeel to a Green Hill official which demanded for 300,000 to be urgently transferred in his name.
Questions were also raised about Shakeel’s status and how he is managing a lavish life style, although he had no source of income. While Obreja dubbed Shakeel “wheelchair driver” of Chowdhry, he called the former AIBA president a “liar” for hiding the facts about the source of $100,000 he received, challenging the Pakistani to discuss these matter at International Olympic Committee and Court of Arbitration for Sport.
In only a tit-for-tat response, Chowdhry came up with counter accusations of what he claimed “buying of votes” at AIBA polls by Wu and charged other officials of changing allegiance. He, however, failed to prove his accusations with any concrete evidence.
In the boxing ring, it was perhaps the most dismal performance by the Pakistani boxers in the history of the sport. It was a year tainted with doping scandal involving star featherweight Mehrullah and light-welterweight Faisal Karim who were tested positive for taking cannabis at August’s South Asian Games in Colombo. While PBF initially claimed that they were not aware of any such ruling in the Sri Lankan capital, Pakistan Olympic Committee (POA) created a mess by maintaining a radio silence, keeping the media in the dark about the issue. POA’s silence added fuel to fire, resulting in speculative media reports and an unending whispering campaign.
Mehrullah and Faisal, who were among the seven who won gold medals, were eventually stripped of their gold medals after being banned by the Games organiser for six months. In a face-saving tactic, PBF slapped life bans on the two boxers and later announced the pair could box at national level but opted to continue life ban. After the ignominious Colombo episode Pakistan were left with only five gold and three silver medals.
Earlier in March, Mehrullah won the silver at Melbourne Commonwealth Games, but his achievement was, however, overshadowed by doping scandal and a horrendous performance at Doha Asian Games from where Pakistan returned without any medal.
It was the writing on the wall that Pakistan might not be able to snare even a silver, leave alone gold, after Chowdhry’s ouster from AIBA. The kind of controversial, whimsical decisions and manipulations were witnessed and reported by the media during the past so many years with Chowdhry at the helm of international boxing, the result was not an unexpected one. With the exception of just a couple of fights, almost all Pakistan boxers were thrashed by their opponents in the Qatari capital.
The pathetic performance also drew sharp reaction from AIBA secretary-general Caner Doganeli who even suggested Pakistan to “get rid of Chowdhry” for the sake of sport in the country. The AIBA official stated the performance at Doha Games had proved Chowdhry’s corruption, saying it was his manipulations that brought laurels for Pakistan during his tenure as AIBA chief.
According to reports during the Asiad, even an Indian boxer Jitender Kumar had expressed fears that he might lose to Nauman Karim in preliminary round since referees could be influenced as Chowdhry, who is the president of Federation of Asian Amateur Boxing, would be at the venue. The statement or rather fears of the boxer were enough evidence to show how Chowdhry had lost honour and credibility as an official.
If Pakistan do not take a fresh start in 2007 — with sincere efforts and dedication — it would surely be yet another disastrous year in boxing for the country.
Hope is all they have
That day he and his 14-year-old brother, Ali, had gone to support their mother, Amina Masood Janjua, who was demonstrating alongside hundreds of others, demanding the release of all those picked up by the security agencies in recent months.
Masood Ahmed Janjua, Amina’s husband and Mohammad’s father has been missing since July 30, 2005.
“I wanted to know where my father was. I don’t trust the government after what happened to me. It’s not easy for you to fight for your rights, knowing the government is against you. I miss my father and want him to come home”, says Mohammad.
The Janjua family cannot understand why the police reacted so brutally towards the protesters on that chilly December day. “We’ll never forget that day, especially Mohammad, who keeps asking why he was beaten up for asking about his father. What can I tell him? That there’s no justice in this country?” asks Amina.
“Hope is all we have. How can I take that away from my children?” she asks emotionally.
Amina says she has been trying to tell Mohammad that the humiliation is not theirs.
“Each day he asks me what his father had done that the agencies had taken him; each day I tell him that his father was a good man and a respectable member of society. I can’t tell him that his father was paying a price for being a tableeghi (preacher)”, she reflects.
Amina puts her family’s plight down to government crackdown on religious seminaries and devout Muslims, post-July 7, 2005 London bombings. She accuses the government of appeasing Britain and America by violating the rights of its own citizens.
“We’re talking about not just my husband here. I have a list of more than 50 families whose fathers, brothers and male members have gone missing. Many don’t even know whether they are dead or alive.”
Amina Masood struggles to keep calm, as she reminisces. “I had a perfect life, a loving husband and three well-groomed children.”
Her 45-year-old husband, Masood Janjua, owned a computer college in Rawalpindi and a travel agency in Islamabad. The son of a retired colonel, Masood had also established the Hamza Foundation, a non-profit organisation involved in humanitarian relief work, and Hamza Hospital.
“My husband is a respectable man and is admired for the relief work he’s done. The government doesn’t have a shred of evidence against him”, insists Amina.
The Janjuas’ blissful existence suddenly turned nightmarish when Masood Ahmed Janjua and his friend Faisal Faraz left Rawalpindi on July 30, 2005 on a three-day preaching mission to Peshawar. They have since not returned.
“A week later we learnt that they didn’t board the Peshawar-bound bus and were probably picked up by the agencies. For days on end I cried and couldn’t believe it was happening to me. I had to pull myself together for the sake of my children who didn’t understand why their father had gone missing.”
On September 7, 2005, Amina lodged an FIR with the Westridge Police Station in Rawalpindi.
“It came to nothing”, she says, “and when the police told me that Masood was nowhere to be found I decided to take matters into my own hands. You can’t imagine how difficult it is to look for a missing loved one when the entire security machinery is against you. My only hope was faith in God and a strong conviction that Masood was alive.”
Eight months later, on May 31, 2006 Amina’s conviction had a voice. “I received a phone call from the Presidency in Islamabad, telling me my husband was alive. It was Lt-Gen Shafqaat who said Masood was alive. But after that whenever I called to ask about my husband Gen Shafqaat didn’t take my call. I was back from where I’d started. I felt helpless and realised it was no ordinary fight.”
Amina directed her determination to search for her husband by going the old way. She found a willing partner in the media and a non-government organisation, Defence of Human
Rights, prompting the Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Chaudhry to take suo motu notice of her husband’s disappearance.
“When my husband’s disappearance was first published in a newspaper the chief justice took notice and ordered the Punjab inspector-general of police to submit a report as to police’s failure to find Masood. I filed a reminding petition in July 2006.”
At another hearing held on December 1, 2006, the Supreme Court issued a notice to the Intelligence Bureau (IB), the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) and the Military Intelligence (MI) to appear before the court, but none of the security services’ officials attended the subsequent hearing held on January 8, 2007.
“They seem to consider themselves above the law. What is even more frustrating is the interior ministry’s response, which says it has no jurisdiction over the security agencies. The police have failed to find my husband, the judiciary’s orders are not followed and the interior ministry is ineffective.”
Does she still have hope?
“Yes, that’s the only thing I have”, says Amina Masood defiantly.
Indian politicians race to ‘house of horrors’
NEW DELHI: A “House of Horrors” outside New Delhi where at least 17 children and women were raped and dismembered has become a major campaign stop for politicians ahead of key elections.
Members of India’s communist parties, the leader of the ruling Congress party, right-wing opposition leaders and caste-based political parties have all flocked to the New Delhi suburb of Noida to express concern over police incompetence in the case.
Noida is in the country’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh -- a key political battleground due to hold state assembly elections in May.
Among those to rush to Noida, where a foul smell led police to discover the crime late last month, was Congress party leader Sonia Gandhi.
“Everyday, something happens in Noida. This government has totally failed,” Gandhi said, attacking the regional ruling Samajwadi (Socialist) Party which currently holds sway in Uttar Pradesh.
Analysts say it is unsurprising that politicians are using the huge media frenzy around the killings -- which are laced with speculation of cannibalism and paedophilia -- to score points against Mulayam Singh Yadav, the Samajwadi Party leader and state chief minister.
“Uttar Pradesh is the cherry in the pudding, because it also sends 80 MPs (the most of any state) to the (543-seat) Indian parliament,” said Delhi University political scientist Anand Ojha.
The 122-year-old Congress party has only 12 lawmakers in its one-time stronghold of Uttar Pradesh, but is desperate to wrest power in the state of 170 million people.
“Uttar Pradesh is the only route to national power, but one must first dislodge the Samajwadi Party. This serial crime offers a grand opportunity to all to crank up emotions in the state,” Ojha said.
Yadav has come under strong fire from all parties and has avoided visiting the site because he thinks it could affect his chances in the upcoming polls, according to media reports.
Police in the state arrested a businessman and his domestic help as suspects in the serial murder case, but the police have come in for heavy criticism for allegedly turning a blind eye to complaints from mainly poor families of child abductions since 2004.
The state is sharply divided by caste, religion and glaring economic disparities, and political parties see the law and order issue as one that cuts across the divides.
Former Indian premier Atal Behari Vajpayee of the Hindu nationalist Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), which occupies 80 seats in the assembly in Lucknow, also attacked Yadav on law and order.
“We have no competition with Sonia Gandhi but we also demand the imposition of federal rule in the state,” Vajpayee said.
The Communist Party of India-Marxist, which is yet to open a legislative office in Uttar Pradesh, is also campaigning in Noida.
“The state government has no right to stay in power,” Marxist leader Brinda Karat said outside the now-barricaded murder scene.
“It is open season on Yadav,” said J.V. Vaishampayan, a professor at Lucknow University. “The electorate will now focus on law and order and these serial murders instead of the usual unemployment, inflation and caste issues.” But Pran Chopra, one of India’s most respected political analysts, warned points scoring could be limited.
“All these parties will cancel each other out on issues of lawlessness,” he said.
For his part, Yadav has accused his foes of “hitting below the belt.” “We can also rake up issues like the 2002 riots that killed 2,000 people in BJP-ruled Gujarat state or the scandalous murders and rapes happening in (Congress-ruled) New Delhi,” said Yadav.—AFP
Pukhtuns not in favour of fence on border
KULLI MUSA: The unmarked border between Pakistan and Afghanistan passes invisibly through Kulli Musa village. Now its ethnic Pakhtun residents are alarmed by a Pakistani plan to fortify parts of the frontier to stop Taliban rebels crossing over to fight Afghan, Nato and US troops on the other side.
“How can we allow fencing and mining between us. We will never accept this. Not at any cost,” said Dost Mohammad, a bearded, turbaned villager from Kulli Musa.
The border snakes 2,500 km through rocky mountains and across deserts and is a major front line in the US-led war on terrorism.
The fiercely independent Pakhtun tribes have never paid much heed to the boundary dividing their lands.
“Half of our village mosque is in Pakistan and the other half in Afghanistan, said Mohammad, fingering a string of prayer beads as he spoke.
His brother’s home is just across the border dividing the collection of mud-walled houses lying partly in Balochistan and partly in Afghanistan’s Kandahar province.
Last year was the bloodiest in Afghanistan since US-led troops ousted the Taliban in 2001. Most of the violence was in provinces bordering Pakistan.
Pakistani forces have also been battling pro-Taliban militants on their side of the frontier, and President Pervez Musharraf fears the Taliban insurgency could escalate into a “peoples’ war” because of the alienation of Pusktuns, particularly by the Afghan government.
Pakistan, which has far more troops manning the border than Afghanistan and its Western allies, hopes fencing and mining on parts of the border will end accusations it is not doing enough to stop militants from infiltrating into Afghanistan.
But the plan, announced last month, has further strained relations with Afghanistan, which says Pakistan should instead tackle Taliban sanctuaries.
Part of the problem is that Afghanistan does not recognise the colonial-era border, and argues that fortifying it would split Pakhtun communities spread across both sides. Despite the conflict, normal life goes on in one of Pakistan’s most deprived regions.
“Government people know better about fencing the border but may Allah damn those who lay mines. They’ll kill our youngsters,” said Hajania, 45, a villager who regularly drives her donkey cart across the border.
“We’re poor people, we have no hostility with anyone.”
Villager Hayat Khan, 50, said: “Pusktun tribes have already been destroyed by the bombing and fighting. Now they want to destroy us further.”
There has been a reduction in militant attacks on the Pakistani side since the military forged a pact in September with tribal leaders in North Waziristan, a hotbed of Taliban and Al Qaeda.
But US forces complain of increased attacks in Afghanistan.
The border was a Cold War front line in the 1980s when Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the West backed Afghan holy warriors and foreign militants battling Soviet occupiers in Afghanistan.—Reuters
‘Metro man’ brings world-class train to Delhi
NEW DELHI: Indian civil engineer Elattuvalapil Sreedharan retired 17 years ago, but since then nobody has let the blunt-talking railway man stop working. Sreedharan, 74, was named one of India’s 50 most powerful individuals in 2006 by top news magazine India Today, and has achieved national hero status for giving India’s capital a world-class metro in record time.
He believes his stripped-down, hands-on, red tape-busting management style combined with a motivated professional team can be used as a blueprint to tackle India’s chronic infrastructure woes.
“New Delhi’s metro is a real example of what can be achieved,” said Sreedharan, a devout, simple-living Hindu dubbed “Metro Man” by India’s media.
India’s famously ramshackle infrastructure of rutted roads, shabby airports and erratic power supply are regularly cited by economists as the biggest hindrance to stronger growth needed to make a significant dent in poverty.
The first 65-kilometre phase was finished two years and nine months ahead of schedule in 2005, well within its Rs 105 billion budget and without scandal.
It was a novel achievement in a country where building projects habitually get mired in charges of corruption, missed deadlines and ballooning costs.
“You need to make up your mind quickly, know what you want to do and do it,” Sreedharan, who goes on frequent on-site inspections and favours a lean management structure, said in an interview.
Now he has been tapped as a consultant to bring urban rail services to other cities such as Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Kochi, Mumbai and Chennai where choking traffic and suffocating smog threaten gridlock.
“Everybody wants a metro now,” he said, speaking in his Spartan office at Delhi Metro Rail Corp.
Riding New Delhi’s metro, the third leg of which was completed last month, is an eye-opener for anyone accustomed to the dirt and chaos of the streets of the fast-expanding capital of 14 million people.
The sleek silver-coloured rail cars glide into spick-and-span platforms, free of the garbage that litters Delhi streets, and the metro aims to keep it that way.
A signboard at one station warns that offenders who toss objects onto the track could face a life sentence in prison.
For commuters, the metro is a pleasant change from the sardine atmosphere of buses so crammed that people hang from the doors, its lethal roads where cars and trucks jostle for space, and hazardous sidewalks on which so many people have been hit that newspapers have dubbed the city a “pedestrian graveyard”.
“Getting places is no longer torture. I even get a seat,” said Pradeep Suri, a 22-year-old law student who crosses the city on the metro twice a day.
The metro has shrunk distances, meaning a traveller can whisk from eastern Delhi to old Delhi in just over half an hour, instead of two hours by bus.
Ridership of around 450,000 people daily is still significantly below capacity, but metro officials are confident passenger numbers will rise as new lines are built and more feeder buses start running.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has called the metro, partly financed by soft Japanese loans, “an example other infrastructure projects should emulate” and hailed Sreedharan as “a role model for future generations”.
When construction of the first line began in 1968, Sreedharan laid down principles he has followed to the letter ever since.
He drew up strict timetables, insisted only the latest technology was used, imposed stringent safety standards that included -- in what was a revolutionary step for India where construction rules are slack -- making workers don hard hats and fluorescent jackets.
He also insisted on a no-interference clause in his mandate, freeing him from busybody politicians and enabling him to cut through a bureaucratic maze that normally clogs decision-making.
There were many skeptics who doubted his chances for success.
Some also feared the construction would create a traffic nightmare.
The country’s only other metro in Kolkata was begun in the 1970s and it took 22 years to build just 17 kilometres of track. There was traffic mayhem as streets were ripped up.
“The cost went up by 12 times,” grinned Sreedharan, who worked on that project but was not in charge.
Sreedharan, the son of a Kerala farmer and an illiterate mother, said his parents believed their eight children “should become independent with education”.
He credits his continued good health and mental acuity to an early-to-bed, early-to-rise regimen along with yoga, walking and a strict diet.
“I wanted everything to meet international standards in quality and construction. Our aim was to be one of world’s top-class metros,” he said.
To do that, he turned to the French for the signalling and to the South Koreans for rolling stock, although the carriages are now being built in India.
In just seven years, Sreedharan’s engineers, using the latest tunnelling techniques, built the first phase with minimal traffic upheaval.
Sreedharan won national prominence when he oversaw construction of the 760-kilometre Konkan Railway, one of the world’s biggest overland railroad building projects, boring through mountain ranges in south-western India.
It was an immensely complex project involving the construction of more than 90 tunnels. But he managed to finish the project on time and within budget.
Delhi planners believed he would be the best choice to build the capital’s metro but by then he was already 67 and retired. Special permission from the prime minister was needed to give him the job.—AFP
Protests putting democracy at risk in Bangladesh
DHAKA: Three days of violent protests have exposed a deep-rooted mistrust between Bangladesh’s main parties that threatens to wreck the young democracy’s Jan 22 election and paralyse the nation for months, analysts say.
The searing divide -- for the third straight day Tuesday, Dhaka saw running clashes as protesters hurled bombs and rocks at riot police who hit back with tear gas and rubber bullets -- is nothing new to Bangladesh.
Although democracy was restored in 1991, both major parties have regularly boycotted parliament and staged national strikes as a negotiating tactic when in opposition.
But the latest unrest has left the impoverished nation facing a variety of unpalatable scenarios ranging from incomplete or delayed elections to a state of emergency.
The parties’ two female leaders -- Sheikh Hasina Wajed of main opposition Awami League and Khaleda Zia of the outgoing governing Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) -- are said to loathe each other.
After months of strikes and protests, the Awami League says it will boycott the elections and is demanding revisions to the voter list that could take up to two years to complete.
It says the changes are needed to remove 14 million ghost voters from the list compiled by the BNP-appointed election commission, which the League says has sought to rig the polls.
“The mistrust comes from a long history of mutual antagonism, but the difference now is that the stakes are just so high,” said Zafar Sobhan, a columnist with the leading Daily Star newspaper.
Politics in Bangladesh, ranked one of the world’s most corrupt nations, is widely regarded as a passport to wealth.
“Losing an election in Bangladesh is always a devastating proposition and this one in particular because of the way recently everything has become politicised, neither side can afford to lose,” Sobhan added.
An interim government, which the opposition claims is biased, took over in late October and constitutionally must hold free and fair elections within 90 days.
The head of the temporary administration, President Iajuddin Ahmed, insists the elections must be held on schedule, but the political impasse and street violence have raised fears of a possible state of emergency or even a military takeover.
“The constitution does not leave any room for an election delay. But since it is an extraordinary situation, the president can ask the Supreme Court to decide whether the election can be deferred,” said Asif Nazrul, professor of law at Dhaka university.
“The BNP would not be able to run the country with continuing Awami League opposition, and so they may agree to this,” said Golam Hossain, professor of government and politics at Dhaka’s Jahangir Nagar Univerisity.
“The Awami League could shut down the country otherwise. I think this is the best option, because even if the Supreme Court agreed to defer the elections it will not be possible to draw up a new voter list in one month.
“Even six months would not be enough and in the meantime the country will suffer massive disruption,” he said.
Hossain said that without a negotiated settlement, the Muslim but secular country of 144 million would face months of chaos, with businesses continuing to lose millions each day.—AFP
Migrants flee Assam state
GUWAHATI (India): Thousands of migrant labourers in buses, trucks and trains fled north-eastern India on the second day of an exodus triggered by separatists who have killed scores of workers.
Militants have killed 72 people, most of them Hindi-speaking migrants, in Assam state since Friday, sparking widespread fear in a community that comes to Assam for eight months a year to work at brick kilns.
The workers headed back to their homes in the eastern states of Bihar, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh on Tuesday, accompanied by their wives and children.
Many flocked to the train station in Guwahati, the main city in Assam, while others pooled money and hired trucks or buses to get away from the worst violence in the state in years.
“We are leaving; we are no longer safe here and have no faith in the police,” said Raghu Nath Jha of Bihar state, who worked in one of the dozens of brick kilns.
Late Tuesday, two policemen were injured when a motorcycle bomb exploded outside a police station in the suburb of Dispur.
The attacks have been blamed on the United Liberation Front of Assam, which has been fighting for the independence of Assamese people in a conflict that has killed thousands of people since it began almost three decades ago.
Last week, the ULFA warned non-Assamese businessmen and labourers of dire consequences if they continued to live in Assam. It accused New Delhi of flooding the state with outsiders to reduce the indigenous Assamese population to a minority.
Hundreds of troops have been deployed in the state, and authorities are sheltering labourers at government buildings during the night while police keep vigil at the kilns during the day.—Reuters
Mercury usage poisoning India
NEW DELHI: Activists said on Wednesday that India should start phasing out unregulated mercury use in health care institutions, as have the United States and European Union, because such use puts millions at risk.
“India has become the world’s second-largest user of the poisonous chemical after China, and yet no government regulations were in place to manage its use,” said Ravi Agarwal of Toxics Links, an environmental group that has studied mercury use and disposal in India.
Mercury is commonly used in thermometers, blood pressure measuring machines, paints, fluorescent lamps and industrial chemicals. Exposure to certain amounts can damage the brain, nervous system or developing foetuses.
Toxics Links’ study of some private Indian hospitals showed that nearly 70 thermometres break every month in a 500-bed hospital, and that an average hospital releases nearly 3 kilograms of mercury into the environment each year, Agarwal said.
Agarwal said it is being handled and disposed of in a hazardous manner, putting at risk health care staff and hospital visitors, especially children and pregnant women.
“Mercury is not mined in India, which imports 100 per cent of its requirement from Spain, Russia and Kyrgyzstan.”
“We want policy makers to take up the task of mercury replacement in health care institutions,” Agarwal said. He said mercury-based instruments should immediately be replaced with digital ones.—AP
Guru: the story of Ambani
MUMBAI: Dhirubhai Ambani is India’s best known rags-to-riches billionaire, but the makers of a new Bollywood film about a villager who rises to the pinnacle of the corporate world insist the movie is not about him.
“Gurubhai”, the name of the lead character in Guru, rhymes uncannily with the name of the deceased founder of the Reliance group, and both men come from a poor village.
On their journey to the top, both founded their companies in 1958 in India’s financial hub of Mumbai and displayed a penchant for getting things done without taking a ‘no’ for an answer.
One of the promo lines of the film reads: “Think big. Think ahead. Think fast”, which matches word-for-word the corporate motto of Ambani.
But the film’s director Mani Ratnam told reporters Guru, which opens on Friday, was largely fictional.
“It is about the journey of a man at a point of time in India who is trying to reach where he wants to reach,” Ratnam said.
“When you pick a film you pick it because there’s an idea which you think will make a film. A lot of stories have a real-life feel and are related to the common man.”
The hero in Guru is the son of a school teacher who travels from a village in the western state of Gujarat to Mumbai and, after much struggle, breaks into the Indian corporate world which until then remained an exclusive, elitist club of bluebloods.
That is also the story of Ambani.
The third of five children of a poor school teacher, Ambani left home when he was 17 to join his eldest brother in Yemen, where he worked as a petrol station attendant, and later as a clerk for an affiliate of Burmah Shell, all the while dreaming of one day owning an oil company.
He achieved that and more.
Ambani created an industrial empire that includes Reliance Petroleum, which operates the fifth-largest refinery in the world, and Reliance Industries, a synthetic fibre and petrochemical manufacturer.
Reliance’s remarkable growth also prompted accusations that Ambani’s success owed as much to manipulation of government policy as to shrewd business decisions.Ambani -- who died in 2002 leaving a conglomerate with a market value of $9 billion -- attributed the criticism to his lowly beginnings.
In Guru, the protagonist shrugs off similar accusations of immorality and manipulation with a quip: “If people say bad things about you, you must be doing something good.”—Reuters