Reading behind bars
Monday, 23 Nov, 2009
THE nature of a public library and the reputation of its patrons may stand in contrast with that of a prison and its inmates. Yet libraries in prisons are not unusual phenomena. Practically every prison in the US has a library of one description or the other. Some prisons in India have libraries, as do a few in African countries like Uganda and Kenya. Our jails have been lagging behind in this respect. But a new ‘book club’ project in prisons run by the National Book Foundation may just change this picture — if it can get the continued support needed to provide consistent and meaningful services for inmates. The first such book club has been established at Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi, and it aims to promote the reading habit among inmates.
Apart from the right to food, shelter and medical services, people held in prison also have the right to recreational facilities and capacity-building. The prison book club can help in this regard. Access to books not only improves prison life by helping inmates pass the time, it provides an opportunity to pursue knowledge. Those from disadvantaged backgrounds can raise their literacy levels, improve educational qualifications and even take vocational correspondence courses. For others, access to books can help develop a deeper appreciation of the world of ideas and education as well as a new direction and purpose in life. The Adiala Jail book club project should be expanded by encouraging publishers, bookstores and individuals to donate reading material. Ideally the facility should one day come to resemble a public library, complete with the services of a librarian. Prisoners elsewhere have long enjoyed such facilities. Inmates in Pakistan deserve the same. But this dream can materialise only if we are convinced that libraries in jails can help change the lives of prisoners.
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Private & public security
Monday, 23 Nov, 2009
ONCE Lahore had just too many policemen for the peace of its dwellers. That impression has changed drastically as we grapple with the new security realities. Loopholes are not difficult to find and people are unimpressed by reports that a large section of the police is dedicated to providing security cover to ‘very important persons’ and their only slightly less important relatives. Lahore has a 24,000-strong police force and various sources put the Punjab capital’s population between eight million and 10 million. This comes to less than 300 policemen per 100,000 people. A report in this paper last week pointed out that some 59,000 cases were registered with the local police in the first 10 months of 2009. Half of these cases are being investigated but obviously the reporter had no means of listing cases which were settled with the active involvement of the police before they could reach the registration stage. On average, three murders are committed in Lahore each day, and there are some 40-odd cases of theft and robbery every 24 hours. The point is the police had their hands full even before this terrorist threat made new demands on them.
Obviously the police have a responsibility to protect people in high offices in these tense times, just as these protected officials have a responsibility towards those living in their jurisdiction. When a court says that private schools make enough money from fees to employ a few security guards of their own, the question that agitates the minds of the people is: what is the government doing with the taxpayers’ money if it is asking people to arrange security on their own? A balance needs to be created between the security of one person and another. An average Lahori is not very keen on trying the newer substitutes to the old system where the state was supposed to provide him with security. A way out could be that the resourceful VIPs employ private bodyguards and free as many policemen as they can to protect the general public.
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Corruption and the NRO
Monday, 23 Nov, 2009
THE list of beneficiaries under the National Reconciliation Ordinance released by the government on Saturday has brought the issue of corruption and the rule of law squarely back in the limelight. There is some confusion about the actual number of politicians who received relief under the NRO; initial reports put the figure at 34, but it has since emerged that only 282 of the 8,000 beneficiaries were actually named in Saturday’s list. However, whatever the final tally of politicians in the NRO list, this much is already obvious: a large number of the beneficiaries, if not an outright majority, are bureaucrats and other government officials. And zooming out from just the NRO, another truth is apparent: those enriching themselves at the state’s and the people’s expense are not always elected representatives and civil servants; indeed, the shadow of suspicion falls across the full spectrum of those employed by the state and includes those in the armed services and the judiciary.
This is not to say that the outcry against the NRO is a red herring; the NRO was a bad idea — morally, legally and constitutionally — in the first place and the government made it worse with the amendments it introduced to the bill in the National Assembly before it was forced to withdraw the ‘NRO Plus’ recently. It is now up to the superior judiciary to decide the fate of all the cases ‘withdrawn’ or ‘terminated’ under the NRO and we await its ultimate decision on the matter. But there are at least two things that need serious attention when it comes to the issue of corruption by officials of the state, and both those issues go beyond the NRO. First, the issue of delays in the conclusion of investigations and trials in corruption matters. The NRO was promulgated in October 2007, but its effect reached back to January 1986. By any stretch of the imagination, a judicial system which cannot reach a conclusion in a case that may date back to almost a quarter of a century is unsatisfactory. It is in the public interest that those guilty of corruption must be convicted and punished as soon as possible; equally, those who have in fact been falsely implicated — always a possibility in a political culture that can be vindictive and malicious — must be exonerated as soon as possible.
Secondly, the anti-corruption checks at an institutional level — and across institutions — need to be urgently strengthened. Focusing on ‘tainted’ individuals alone misses the point: while past wrongdoers deserve to be punished, what is really needed is a system that deters corruption now and in the future.
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OTHER VOICES - North American Press Hunger in the US
Monday, 23 Nov, 2009
CONGRESS should make a priority of expanding federal nutrition programmes that are aimed at helping millions of struggling families feed their children. The need to bolster these programmes was underscored again this week in a dismaying Department of Agriculture study showing that a record number of households had trouble getting sufficient food at one time or another last year.
These facts are troubling enough, but a separate federal study showed that even before the recession began, more than two-thirds of families with children who were defined as ‘food insecure’ under federal guidelines contained one or more full-time worker …
Families were categorised as ‘food secure’ or ‘food insecure’ based how they answered several questions on their eating habits during the previous 12 months. Among other things, adults were asked whether they or any of their children had ever forgone eating for an entire day because the family lacked money for food.
According to the new federal data, the number of people in households that lacked consistent access to adequate nutrition rose to 49 million in 2008, 13 million more than in the previous year and the most since the federal government began keeping the data 14 years ago.
About a third of struggling households had what the researchers called ‘very low food security’, meaning that members of the household skipped meals, cut portions or passed on food at some point during the year because they lacked money. The other two-thirds managed to feed themselves by eating cheaper or less varied foods, relying on government aid like food stamps or resorting to food pantries and soup kitchens …
Mr. Obama, who is travelling in Asia, has set himself the task of wiping out child hunger by 2015. To do that, Congress needs to get busy on a broad plan to expand and fully pay for a whole range of nutritional programmes aimed at school-age children and their families. Only then will vulnerable children across the country get the nutrition they need. — (Nov 18)