A tete-a-tete with 1980s Bollywood darling, Deepti Naval, on painting, priorities and tranquilityThere is a small sculpture of Durga that hangs on a wall of my home; it was gifted to us by someone I have no memory of. That remarkable face of the Goddess, with those big haunting eyes, stares at us silently as if out of compulsion or boredom. Stares at us, but does not see. Much like the over-large eyes that Jamini Roy was known to paint. Those big empty eyes clean as a slate, staring at us from advertisement hoardings and Durga pujo pandals; staring at us, watching us move from one day to another at a manic pace; those still pair of eyes. A similar pair of empty eyes, gaze at us from a wooden beam. These eyes, unlike Roy’s white, are black as the night sky, and dark as our sins. This creation called Mask on Wooden Beam is a painting by Deepti Naval. The most prominent feature of the portraits done by Naval is the pair of eyes she paints, which are often her own. The pregnant nun looks at us with eyes that question our motives behind the interest we take in her. She asks us why is it that we can’t accept her the way she is. Why is it that we are questioning her purity? How can a nun be pregnant, we wonder, isn’t that a contradiction? When Naval says that “Everything that you create is a reflection of yourself,” this is what she means. At the surface, the emotions that this painting evokes are that of purity, and perhaps rebellion, the need to go against the norms of world, but at a deeper level, it reflects an internal conflict. The contradictions are the artist's own, her fight, with herself. Naval tells me that she is a conflicting person indeed. On days she is a recluse, a hermit, while on others she is the most approachable person on planet. She says that she often finds herself switching between personalities of a recluse and an outgoing person. When in her reclusive phase, Naval locks herself up and creates. She unearths the meaning of life and ponders over the grey shades of life, so when she says that she has mastered the art of self-destruction, you are bound to believe her. The art of self-destruction No one does it better I have mastered the craft with great skill A craft not easy to master, mind you. Talking about this poem, The Art of Self-destruction, she says this is how she feels about her life. It is an observation she made, in the course of her life. “Life, as it seems, is going fine, until one day, everything suddenly falls apart and breaks into pieces, and then you start again,” she says. The great artist Lucian Freud, who also painted self-portraits, had once said that all art is autobiographical, “Everything is autobiographical and everything is a portrait, even if it’s a chair.” Naval, who seems to be belonging to a similar school of thought, also believes in something similar. She says that all her work—her paintings, poems, short stories, films is a reflection of herself. She is the pregnant nun, and she is the Red Head, staring at us with those deep, dark, pensive eyes, daring us to stare back at her. My first memory of Naval, coincidentally enough, is of her eyes, her happy, gleaming with admiration for her idealist poet lover, eyes. A scene from the 1982 Raman Singh movie Saath Saath, where Farooque Sheikh the poor idealist poet, boiling with anger over the corrupt capitalist world, is pouring his heart out in front of her, and Naval awestruck by his principles and ideals, is staring at him with her smiling eyes locked in admiration. Geeta, the character played by Naval in the film, was not the only one falling in love with Avinash (Sheikh). I, too, was awestruck. So much so, that I saw myself in Naval. Naval says that this was the very reason that drew her to films. She wanted to act, so that she could portray the myriad emotions that we experience in our everyday lives. She became an actor, so that people could relate to her characters. “It was not the money or the fame, but the art of acting that made me join films,” she says. “I wanted to leave an impression on people.” The industrywallahs believe that Naval is as talented as the Late Smita Patil, however she never got her due. Naval herself accepts that while her contemporaries have more than 200 films in their kitty, she just has some 70-odd films. The 1980s and the early 1990s were known to be worst years for Bollywood. The formula based, masala films were reigning supreme in those days. In that period, Naval also did a few shoddy films. My most disappointing Naval moment came when I saw her portraying the role of a domesticated wife Sharda in Kalpataru's Ghar Ho To Aisa. Naval, who played the role of the family’s elder bahu and wife of Raj Kiran, who by then had mastered the art of being the spoilt elder son, was often treated with disrespect and beaten up by the saas, Bindu. Roles like this, and a few others that followed, made her quit films, if only for the time being. Naval took a sabbatical from films in the 1990s, and went on a self exploratory journey. She says she had stopped enjoying the process and had to, therefore, leave. “I was being offered the same kinds of roles, and I was scared that I might get stuck, that I might not grow at all, and so I took a break.” Her second innings started with unconventional and experimental films like Leela and Freaky Chakra. In both the films, even though they flopped at the box office, Naval’s performances were appreciated. Known to have played many intense roles, Naval says that she is, at times, scared of getting into the skin of the characters. “Sometimes some roles make you scared when you know you need to go in to the mind of the character that you cannot work on the surface.” But at the same time, she says, she enjoys the “challenge an intense role brings to you”. These days she is busy trying to get her film Do Paise Ki Dhoop, Chaar Aane Ki Barish released. The actor, who donned the director’s hat for the first time, tells me that when compared to making a film “acting is a cake walk”. She says that though she enjoyed the journey, it was one hell of a process. And what is harder than making a film? “It is getting it released,” she adds with a smile. From the dainty Sandhya of Salunke chawl who wishes to marry a robila (flamboyant) man in Sai Paranjpay’s Katha, to Leela Krishnamoorthy, the freespirited middle-aged widow, who discovers love late in life in Listen… Amaya, Naval has done it all. She is a woman who has lived her life regret-free and on her own terms. Recently when remake of the Sai Paranjpay classic Chashme Buddoor hit the screens, one reviewer said that films like the older version are not being made anymore. It would be just, perhaps, to say, that people like Naval, they do not make them anymore either.
A town that’s yet to turn into a tourist circus, Jaisalmer offers an idyllic refugeThe best part about Jaisalmer is that it does not have its own airport as yet. Once it does, plane-loads of exotica-seeking tourists will swarm its golden deserts and yet another destination will have turned into a circus. Right now, Jaisalmer may be perceived to be small town in the midst of the desert, with a single roundabout which is its sole claim to fame, but its golden fort and the changing face of the desert around it is what makes Jaisalmer so unique. Our drive to Jaisalmer started at Jodhpur, the nearest airport, a four-hour drive away. The road from there is long and straight. It is desert on either side for as far as the eye can stretch. In Jodhpur, rose pink is the colour of the sandstone and the earth itself. Then somewhere before Pokaran, you notice that the earth has somehow turned golden yellow. By the time you reach Jaisalmer, you notice the difference in the colour of the fort, compared with the Jodhpur fort. We were staying at Suryagarh Hotel, a short distance from the town. That was the chief advantage, because the silence in the sprawling resort was like a healing balm for the soul. Every now and then the all-encompassing silence would be broken by a wind that rustled through the ancient stones and sand of the desert, and then, quite as suddenly, it would stop, and you would hear the silence again. Suryagarh may have been brand new but it had already acquired a patina of timelessness. Made of the same soft golden stone that defines the rest of the town, its various nooks and corners gave it the air of a fort that had stood mute in the desert for aeons. There are few who have not heard of Marryam H. Reshii. Reshii is a well-known restaurant critic and gastronomy writer, a relentless traveller, and a woman slightly obsessed with olive oil, Kashmiri recipes, Indian heritage foods, French patisserie and fine chocolate... well, her list is long. A keen photographer, Reshii lives in Delhi with her husband and two children There was, for example, the courtyard where Imran, the youthful magician, is a permanent fixture (his simple tricks delighted every guest, no matter what their age). The courtyard was home to a flock of fantail pigeons and half a dozen peacocks, while at the entrance sat a Pandit who performed aarti at the temple, a family of Mangniyar folk singers with a dancer and two ballad singers. Suryagarh was like a non-hotel: there was no impersonal basket of fruit in your room: instead, an unseen halwai made the most delicious array of mithai that was artfully arranged in our room, morning and evening. In place of piped music (no Kenny G, thankfully) there was folk music everywhere. Because of the all-enveloping silence of the surroundings, we could frequently hear the musicians without being able to see them. In a sense, it became the soundtrack of our holiday in the desert. Our forays into the desert led us to discover that the word ‘desert’ is far removed indeed from the one-size- fits-all feature that I always assumed it to be. It was more or less flat, it was true, but the different perspectives that came into view were astonishing in their variety. Most of it was variously coloured scrub: the palest pinks, golds and greens tinted the land and here and there were cacti growing on either side of the road. Suddenly, after a few miles, there would be rocky outcrops dotting the landscape—tortured rocks from god knows what distant age, how many millennia ago. And in the midst of it all, you would suddenly find a deserted village. Made from the stone of the land, it looked like a natural structure rather than something built with the human hand. “Nobody knows why they left or where they have gone to,” said our driver, Bhanwar Singh, with a tone of hushed awe. According to him, the Paliwals were a Brahmin community whose womenfolk were reputed to be exceptionally beautiful. After having lived in over 80 villages in the region, they disappeared en masse one night and have never been seen since. “People say that a ruler wanted to marry a Paliwal lady against her will. One thing I do know is that these villages are cursed,” said Bhanwar with a hasty look over his shoulder, as he dived behind the wheel of his Fortuner. The reason, according to Bhanwar, who was a local, was that the fleeing tribe cursed anyone who tried to occupy their villages or even carry away stones from the tumble-down houses. Given the scanty rainfall in the region, the Paliwal villages are, centuries later, in a chillingly good state of repair. Khaba Fort—no relation to the famous Jaisalmer Fort in the centre of town—was a tiny pimple in the middle of the desert, this time near an oasis. Of no great architectural merit, it was the venue for our breakfast early one morning. Waking up before dawn, that too on a holiday, is hardly a propitious start to a day, but once we had hauled ourselves up over the steep steps of the fort, an extraordinary sight awaited us. As dawn slowly broke on the horizon and smudged navy blue gradually metamorphosed into emerald and rose, dozens, if not hundreds of peacocks scrambled up the little fort. Manvendra Singh, the owner of Suryagarh who had urged us to reach the fort before dawn, told us that the local administration donates a sack of grain daily to the peacocks in the area. Just seeing a particle of humanity in the government made the pre-dawn trip worthwhile. And the crowning glory was the spectacle of more peacocks than I have seen in my life, strutting around the ramparts of the disused fort. There are sand dunes—we had a memorable dinner there on our last night, with live music by the Mangniyar family—and camel rides, frankincense trees, pre-historic rocks, small lakes where herds of wild bluebull (nilgai) come to drink and the ghosts of the spirits who have lived in Jaisalmer, been burnt at the funeral pyre of their husbands and been chased out en masse, within a few hours. Oh yes! And there is quiet and colour too.
EVERY YEAR WE pay tribute to men and women who have died in combat with solemn speeches and ceremonies. These men and women enter the military, risking their lives—but this risk is not, as is often described, a ‘sacrifice’ for a ‘random higher cause’. THIS cause is a matter of true threat to all of our civilian lives. Many become soldiers for precisely this threat, to save us. Why is it that we—citizens of India—remember and talk of our people, guarding our borders, during times of strife and only then? The recent LoC gun fire exchange between India and Pakistan in January 2013 made us sit up and remember that we shared a stretch of unresolved border with our neighbour, and that sometimes issues of contention are a bit bigger than cricket. This disconnect between the Indian Army and its civilians (us) is disconcerting. It is true that our ordinary, every day lives are hard. But as (retired) General V.P. Malik said, it is not only our duty to start a dialogue with our legislature, political leadership and the military, it is also our right. As he pointed out, the Union Government has allocated some `20-lakh-crore to the Indian Military this year—and that is no small sum. What the common citizen could, on his or her part, do, is to ask whether the money is being utilised and turned into what General Malik calls capabilities. He has been called the Victor of Kargil and he is undoubtedly one of the most popular Army Chiefs of all time. This month we converse with our military man on matters of war and peace. Do read on Page 12. On a lighter side, Marryam Reshii takes us on a true-blue trek to Istanbul, and the wonderfully-nutty Chef Bill Marchetti talks of the time when he chased a hapless waiter around the kitchen with a knife. No, none was hurt, Marchetti assures us. For those out there trying to make the social media work for the cash registers, here’s Tushar Kanwar to tell you how. And I leave you with a hope that the new amendment Acts in Parliament in the wake of the Delhi rape make our world just a bit safer. See you next month.
Humble, honest and firm, the former Army Chief, General (retired) Ved Prakash Malik on why a dialogue between civilians, politicians, bureaucracy and army is the need of the hour...“We are a democracy. I would like more people to think of the army. The political sections, as well as the bureaucracy, are content if the public do not ask any questions. If you, as a journalist, raise questions then will people react. India pays handsomely for its Army—would you not like to know more about where it is headed; whether the currency is being converted into capabilities?” He sits opposite to me, benign, hands folded, soft spoken and keen to hear me out. He looks younger than his 70-and-an-odd years. There is a twinkling kindness in his eyes, which reminds me of my political science professor, who was so ‘sweet’ (for the lack of a better word) that we hung on to his every word. I am hanging on to this man’s every word now. Not because he is sweet, or that he demands my respect (both are true) but because he is an important man—perhaps the most important man in India when she was in throes of war between May and July 1999. If you suggest the same to General Ved Prakash Malik, the 19th Chief of the Army Staff, he would be mortified. The tags don’t sit well on him. He explains that the Kargil War, or any war for that matter, is fought by men in the trenches and on the battle-field. As a leader one is left ‘deeply honoured’ if one’s men trust you enough to hear your orders out. “I never fought the war. I was fortunate enough to have men who trusted my orders and followed them.” His logic is plain and direct—much like his speech. There are no verbal genuflections to the nation or national identity. There are no melodramatic speech about courage. There is only determination. This is the author behind Kargil: From Surprise to Victory. His book is an incisive narrative which reveals behind-the-scenes events that led to the Kargil War and its aftermath. How Pakistan Army personnel infiltrated Indian borders dressed as jehadis (a ruse that the General did not fall for because terrorists don’t fight to ‘maintain territory’) and how tactical surprise failed at a strategic level. The book also offers an insight into the Pakistani political leadership and just how out-of-sync it was with the planning of its military brass. As to why he chose to write the book, General Malik answers honestly, “Because everyone else was writing something about it. Not that I wish to take the credit away from journalists, but they were not in the war in the same way as a soldier is. So, I thought that our version needed to be heard as well. I felt that if I don’t explain how and why of the war, then it goes into oblivion as all the other Indian wars have.” “I waited for five years and then I wrote the book. I took my time with it. Just writing without giving your own examples is not fair. I wanted to give it some credibility. I remember when I gave the complete manuscript to Harper Collins I added an apology. I told them that I had written it in fauji language. Thankfully, they thought it was all right,” he says with a smile. “I may be polite, I may write simply, but I won’t hesitate to call a spade, a spade. A thing I will continue to carry on, apart from writing, is addressing citizens about India’s security and strategic issues. It is my contribution to my country.” From the first day that he assumed office as the Chief of Army Staff and Services, General Malik has been consistent in his worries and wishes. Years after the war, he hopes that one day the country will be able to strike a balance between resources and capabilities. During Kargil War, while a media briefing was on, a journalist asked General Malik how the army was going to fight in the face of its weapons and equipment shortages. General Malik’s reply was: “We shall fight with whatever we have.” That became a prominent point, and a personnel from the Ministry of Defence complained to the Prime Minister about the statement. At that point General Malik believed that any attempt to cover up the true state of affairs would have conveyed an impression to the army rank and file that their Chief was indulging in ‘double talk’. “And if that would have happened, they would have lost confidence in me.” And it was important that people, his people, never lost faith. “The Indian soldier is a remarkable human being: spiritually evolved, mentally stoic and sharp, physically hardy and skilled. And his institution remains proud of its traditions of selflessness, devotion to duty, sacrifice and valour,” General Malik had said to the media in a press release. “When the Prime Minister asked a wounded Garhwali soldier in a Srinagar hospital what can he do for him, the response was ‘I want to rejoin my battalion as soon as possible’ and ‘please get us lighter weapons and equipment so that we can climb mountains faster’. Even during the war an Indian soldier’s spirit was strong. We were confident that we would throw the intruders out from Kargil and Siachen sectors. If the situation demanded, we could also attack across the border.” That was why General Malik chose to quit Delhi, and go to Kargil and Siachen fronts to address troops regularly, interacting with them and seeing their commitment and motivation. “I would get re-assured, when I was with them,” he says. A further illumination of the lessons learnt from Kargil war were penned by the General himself for Bharat Rakshak Monitor’s Volume 4(6)(1). He underlined the lessons in 10 lines.
“India spends a lot of money on its defence. This year there was hue and cry over a slash in the Defence Budget. At the end of the day, if you look at the allotted sum (`2-lakh-crore), it is not a small sum. The problem is not the money. But the fact that the money invested has to be converted into capabilities. Unfortunately, I feel we are not building the kind of capabilities with the money that we are spending,” he says. It is the same statement that this Army Chief made when he addressed the media after the war, “A proper balance must exist between resources and capabilities. No single arm can dictate operational capability or influence the operational environment, be it mobility, firepower, surveillance or intelligence, these assets require to be judiciously distributed on the battlefield. Only then can battles be fought as one of the combined arms.” “The strength of a military lies in its human resource, weapons and equipment, and its morale.” But that leads to the question as to why, a nation thus evolved, finds it problematic to strike this ‘balance’. “There are many reasons for it. The first is based on a lack of knowledge—about the military—among our decision-makers, whether be it politicians or the bureaucrats. The second reason is not keeping the military in the loop in the defence planning. As far as the military itself is concerned, after 42 years of service as a military officer, I have a lot of faith in its human resources; in our soldiers. It is in our policies where we often fault; our policies require major changes to get us the capabilities that are required to face challenges we are up against and those that might trouble us in the future. How can India become a major power when she imports 70 per cent of her weapons from foreign shores. We haven’t build the defence industry required for a military of our size. India is a large country and it faces several internal and external challenges. We share unresolved borders with China and Pakistan. Then, there are the smaller nations and the vast Indian Ocean. We have to plan in terms of decades ahead. We are the fourth or third-largest military in the world, yet we are the seventh largest importer of arms. Defence planning is not being understood by our decision-makers who don’t wear the uniform. Reforms are possible through political intervention, and may be, even legislative action.”
“Both China and India are nuclear powers. Being a nuclear power brings down the threshold of the kind of war that we are talking of now. This is not 1962 anymore. The scenario has changed completely. We have an unresolved border with China and it stakes its claim—which it repeats every two years. The claims also create strategic problems in terms of China’s partnership with Pakistan, and in our partnerships with smaller nations around us. They are the major weapons supplier to Myanmar, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. The national power gap between China and India, it seems to be growing in China’s favour. There is a partnership on the economic front, and if it benefits both countries, it will be a good thing. But the strategic problem; I feel that we need to be adequately prepared for that. We must be prepared for some kind of show-down. On the Pakistan front, I am not overtly concerned. We are strong enough to take on Pakistan. During Kargil, we were not allowed to enter the Pakistan territory from anywhere. Despite that we were able to push their soldiers out.” According to General Malik, nuclearisation of China, India and Pakistan has created a ‘stability-instability paradox’ situation in Asia. The military balance is stable at the level of all-out nuclear and conventional war; it has become less stable at lower levels of violence. The likelihood of a full-scale war stands reduced, while the possibility of proxy war through terrorists or limited war and skirmishes with regular troops along disputed borders appears to have increased. Earlier, he says, proxy wars and terrorism, which could lead to a limited or full-scale conventional war, were not viewed as part of the spectrum of conflict. The Kargil War and the Indo-Pak military standoff in 2001-2002 have shown that proxy wars and terrorism must be included in the ‘spectrum of conflict’ between two nations. There are two strategic conditions which can spark off and then escalate a military conflict between India and its neighbours.(2) “First, the border disputes where a serious skirmish can lead to a conventional military conflict, and second, intense proxy war that may lead to a conventional war. When a conventional war does break out in such conditions between two nuclear nations, it is expected to be fought under a nuclear overhang. Some people call that a sub-conventional war or a limited conventional war. The Chinese call it ‘local border wars’. Such a conflict could also spread out in time, in what could possibly be termed as a war in ‘slow motion’. It will have to be conducted within the framework of carefully calibrated political goals and military moves that permit adequate control over escalation and disengagement.” One of the major influencing factor in these skirmishes would be the fact that all three nations are nuclear powers. “The demand for nuclear weapons has been there ever since 1979. But that was just a recommendation or demand—whatever you would like to call it. Perhaps procuring the weapon is the best way to prevent a nuclear war—a nuclear deterrence. Chiefs before me had asked for it particularly after China obtained a weapon in 1964 and then we heard reports of Pakistan being a few turns of the screw away from making a bomb in 1984. It came about in 1998 and it was a political decision and I was warned a few days before the decision. And I was satisfied with the decision.” “Unless the political leadership takes greater interest in this sphere and we make some structural changes in the armed forces. We have a greater, direct interaction between the political leadership and military. Its only in the times of crisis is there a direct contact between the military and the political leadership, otherwise the military is kept at an arm’s length through bureaucrats. So, there is a need for us to make some organisational changes so that there is much closer interaction and on all security matters the heads of the services need to be kept in the loop.”
PEACE; A WAY OF LIFE“If you think I am fit enough to be an instructor then I am fit enough to be a commanding officer,” he tells me laughing, when I inform General Malik that he reminds me of the professor. Are you not too mild to be an Army man? He is not offended by the naivete of the question. Instead, he explains that the military is one big family. That you have brothers-at-arms who are also your best friend and family during times of peace. Think school and college. Think of football games, some foolish rule breaking mischief done together, getting punished together, and assignments done together and the pat on the back that leaves you as much proud as it does your friends. Well, that is military for you. “At the time of crisis you have to lead from the front, you should be prepared to do what you expect people to do. Once your peers and subordinates know that you are one of those people, they trust you and your orders. In the army, the system of seniority—commanding officers—is important because they are the guides and mentors. They treat you like a younger brother, as do their wives—the seniors take care of you. “It is a well-knit family. The army’s about discipline, integrity and resolutions. It is not just about violence or war. In 1959, when I got my first commission, there was no major current strife—apart from a few pockets of violence in Nagaland. My men’s lives and mine revolved around exercises because one did not know about the Pakistan situation. It could escalate at any time. “In 1959, I was posted along the Amritsar border. Then in 1962 my unit was sent to Ladakh. We were deployed at several places but that was right after the fights were over. I didn’t see any bullets flying around me, but we were in a war-like situation, moving from a place to another, always on alert. We did see a lot of bodies. Ladakh in those days was climatic disaster and we lost a few good people to pulmonary edema. Not much was known of the condition and that turned out to be our biggest battle then till we knew more of the condition and then we started taking preventive measures. “A way of keeping sane in the military is to be clinical about guidelines and keep your faith in your people. And there by life revolves around camaraderie.” Not content to just rise through ranks, General Malik went through all the specialised courses that the military had to offer. “Fortunately I did well. I became instructors in various schools—at the staff college, infantry school, in the school of combat. One’s nomination in the courses depended on merit and merit alone. Some you have to depend on the exams. You have to be cut above others. In school I was a bad student in physics and in the NDA I was the weakest person in mathematics. Most people want to do well. Even youngsters today I see them so driven. My family’s expectations and the competitive spirit that the Indian Army instills were the driving forces behind my rise. Apart from that I never thought much about what was happening?”, he says. So was he never ambitious? “Why don’t you tell me what is your connotation of that word—what do you mean by that? At a certain level I do not want to look too far ahead. But I would look at the next rung that I had to climb, which kept me motivated. At the same time, I wished to stay true and clear to what I was doing then. Did I get into the Army to climb up? Yes. Did I get into the army to do only that—no!” Today, General Malik is settled in Panchkula near Chandigarh. Instead of ROUND enjoying a steady retirement, he keeps himself engaged spreading awareness and sharing his views on India’s national security challenges and international relations, both in India and abroad. He was a member of the National Security Advisory Board (NSAB) for two years. And he has been an independent director on the board of some private sector companies and advisor to foundations and trusts. He has authored and edited defence-related books and has written articles for several dailies and magazines. He tried his hand at gardening but his wife allegedly beat him to it. “Now my role is of the bystander—I just sit and listen to her when she talks. She is the pro. Thanks to her I know names of all plants and flowers that grow in the garden.” Like father, like son, General Malik’s son is now a Colonel in the Army and is married to an Army doctor. “Out of the blue he came to me and informed me that he was going to be enlisted. He had completed his BCom and was nowhere near to an army career. Then one day he informed me that he was going to be married and that too, to an army doctor. So, in lieu of the family tradition, he seems to have fitted right in.”
SC upholds conviction of Sanjay Dutt, reduces jail termVERDICT\\ The Supreme Court in March upheld the death sentence of Yakub Abdul Razak Memon in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case. The court also upheld the conviction of Sanjay Dutt under the Arms Act. The court, however reduced the actor’s six-year jail term given by TADA court to five years. SC said the convicts who were on bail, including Sanjay Dutt, will have to surrender within four weeks. The SC commuted the death sentence of 10 other convicts to life imprisonment. The apex court commuted the death sentences on the ground that the convicts were behind bars for 20 years and their economic condition was weak. The court upheld the life sentence of 16 out of 18 convicts sentenced by the TADA court. The life sentence of Ashrafur Rehman Azimulla was reduced to 10 years while that of Imtiyaz Yunusmiya Ghavte to jail term already undergone.
Nation Mourns the Socialist Leader’s Demise, Readies for ElectionsDEMISE\\ President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela died after a struggle with cancer leaving behind a bitterly divided nation in the grip of a political crisis that grew more acute as he languished for weeks in hospitals in Havana and Caracas. Close to tears and his voice cracking, Vice President Nicolás Maduro said he had gone to the military hospital where Chávez was being treated, when “We received the hardest and most tragic information that we could transmit to our people.” As the news of the demise spread, police and soldiers were visible as people ran through streets, calling loved ones on cellphones, rushing to get home. Caracas, the capital, which had just received news that the government was throwing out two American military attachés it accused of sowing disorder, quickly became an enormous traffic jam. Later on, somber crowds congregated in the main Caracas square and at the military hospital, with citizens crying openly. Chávez’s departure from a country he dominated for 14 years casts into doubt the future of his socialist revolution. It alters the political balance not only in Venezuela, the fourth-largest supplier of foreign oil to the US, but also in Latin America, where Chávez led a group of nations intent on reducing American influence in the region. Chávez, 58, changed Venezuela by empowering millions of poverty-ridden people who had felt marginalised. However, his rule also widened society’s divisions. The Venezuelan Constitution states that since Chávez was at the start of a term, the nation should “proceed to a new election” within 30 days. Foreign Minister Elías Jaua said that Maduro would take the helm in the meantime. The election is likely to pit Maduro, whom Chávez designated as his political successor, against Henrique Capriles Radonski, a young state governor who lost to Chávez in the presidential election in October 2012. In light of Chávez’s illness, there were debates over clashing interpretations of the Constitution. Chávez’s cancer was diagnosed in June 2011, but throughout his treatment he and his government kept many details about his illness secret. He had three operations in Cuba between June 2011 and February 2012, as well as chemotherapy and radiation treatment, but the cancer kept coming back. Then on December 8, 2012, Chávez stunned the nation by announcing in a televised address that he needed yet more surgery. That operation, his fourth, took place in Havana on December 11, 2012. After previous operations, Chávez often appeared on television while recuperating in Havana, posted messages on Twitter or was heard on telephone calls made to television programs on a government station. But after his December operation, he was not seen again in public, and his voice fell silent.
Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani girl who drew global attention after being shot in the head by the Taliban for advocating girls’ education, returned to school on Tuesday in Britain, where she has been treated for her injuries. Malala was flown to Britain after the attack for surgery.
CRICKET\\ Never in the 81-year-old Test history has India won more than two matches against Australia in a single series. But in March 2013, India and its able Captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni crushed Australia 4-0. Chasing 155, Cheteswar Pujara made a calm unbeaten 82 to propel India to a six-wicket victory. At one go, Indians regained the Border-Gavaskar Trophy and showed visions of better days for this young team to their millions of fans. Dhoni led the youngsters in his team in a stellar fashion, and the young names responded with aplomb. Virat Kohli made a hundred in Chennai and Dhoni conjured one of the best counter-attacking double centuries (224) in Test cricket. Murali Vijay (167) and Cheteshwar Pujara (204) responded with inspiring knocks in Hyderabad before Shikhar Dhawan (187) took the nation’s breath away with a mind boggling Test century, fastest by a debutant, at Mohali.
Special Court Set Up for CaseRETURN\\The Italian marines—who refused to return to India after travelling home to vote for their National Election in March 2013—arrived in India at the end of March ending a bitter stand-off between the two concerned countries. The Supreme Court had on February 22, 2013, allowed the marines to go to Italy for four weeks to cast their vote in the general elections there. They were to return on March 22, 2013. On March 11, 2013, Rome had informed New Delhi that they would not be returning to stand trial. But after pressure from India, Italy sent them back. The marines were charged in India for killing two fishermen. Italy said its marines were on antipirate duty aboard a cargo ship off India’s coast in February 2012 when the fishermen were killed. In Rome, the two men, allegedly appeared before a military prosecutor who questioned the two. Supreme Court of India had indefinitely extended its order barring the Italian Ambassador from leaving the country after Italy refused to return the marines to India. Italy’s foreign ministry has called that court decision a clear violation of diplomatic relations. The Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM) of Patiala House Court will hold trial of the two marines, Massimilano Latorre and Salvatore Girone, high court sources said.
Family cries foul over alleged suicideSUICIDE\\ Bus driver Ram Singh, one of the six accused in the rape, torture and murder of the 23-year-old New Delhi physiotherapy student was found hanging in Tihar jail in this month. The 34-year-old Singh, the alleged ringleader in the attack, was found hanging by a rope made from blankets in a high-security cell he was sharing with three other prisoners. The death of the alleged rapist created furor, leading the deceased’s family to question security provided to inmates within Indian jails. The family alleged that the death was not a suicide, but a murder. The family’s lawyer claimed his client had extensive injury marks on his body, including a broken collarbone and ribs, and cuts to his face. The allegations contradict the findings of a post mortem report, which found Ram Singh died of asphyxia due to hanging and that his death “appeared suicidal in nature”. “There were no injuries on the victim's body, internal or external, other than the ligature mark. No suggestions of intoxication either. All organs were healthy,” said one of five doctors involved in the autopsy. Defence lawyer, V.K. Anand, who organised the release of the body to Singh’s family, has accused authorities of a “cover-up”.