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Economic Highlights
A Human Tragedy:Fighting the sand Dragon, by Radhakrishna Rao,3 March 3, 2006 |
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PEOPLE AND THEIR PROBLEMS
New Delhi, 3 March 3, 2006
A Human Tragedy
Fighting
the sand Dragon
By Radhakrishna Rao
The rapidly advancing sand stretches gobbling up vast areas
of fertile land with a serious consequence to the strategy aimed at boosting
the food output continues to haunt a major part of the world. In fact, in the
context of a fast expanding global population, the need to increase the food
yield has become all the more pronounced.
Desertification brought about by drastic environmental
changes accentuated by the human interference into the domain of nature,
continues to trigger off devastating droughts and human suffering in many parts
of Asia and Africa. The Thar desert in India and Kalahari desert in Africa
are by all means a mute testimony to man’s failure to check the process of eco degradation leading to the formation of
the arid zone. Far from being lifeless
entities, deserts are dynamic and teem with a variety of life forms.
Significantly, it has been estimated that each year the
world loses on an average US$45-billion on account of the process of desertification. In fact, the problem of desertification
is quite acute in poorer areas and is today threatening one third of the global
area. An unhealthy product of a vicious mix of economic, environmental and
political as well as technological forces, desertification is a slow process which land productivity deteriorates over a
period of time. Millions of environmental refuges uprooted by the inhospitable
and unproductive land stretches have now become a part of an unfolding human
tragedy.
Against this backdrop, it is but appropriate that the United
Nations has declared 2006 as the year of desert and desertification. The
objective behind this move is to rise global public awareness of the
advancing deserts, ways and means to safeguard the biological diversity of arid lands covering one third of
the global surface and promoting the knowledge and tradition of around two-billion
people affected by the inexorable and
relentless march of desertification.
Meanwhile, the UN Secretariat on the Convention to Combat desertification
stresses the importance of
recognizing that in addition to the human and environmental cost of the
degradation that contributes to the
problem, the dry lands deserts are located amidst some of the most magnificent eco systems of
the world. Clearly and apparently, desertification causes a huge loss to agricultural productivity, contributes to
food insecurity, famine and poverty and
can give rise to social, economic and political tensions that can further
contribute to impoverishment and land degradation.
“It is widely recognized that environmental degradation
could affect national security as well as international stability. Therefore,
desertification is seen as a threat to human security”, says a UN spokesman. The
UN Secretariat on the Convention to combat desertification says that these
natural habitats (desert) with their incredibly diverse fauna are
home to the world’s oldest civilizations.
Some of the factors responsible for causing desertification
include overgrazing, explosive growth of cattle population, deforestation and
unsustainable agricultural practices. Added to that human population growth and
severe pressure on the land
resources too go a long way in causing desertification. Increasing stress on cultivation of cash crops with a view to net
more foreign exchange—which is quite evident in Africa—also
contributes to desertification.
India which has around 12 per cent of its
land are under hot deserts is also facing the unpleasant prospect of its one
third of the arable land being threatened by the forces of desertification. For
long there has been an apprehension that the frightening desert stretches of
Thar sprawling over an area of 2,30,000 sq.km
across the states of Gujarat and Rajasthan
is spreading eastwards by encroaching into Aravallis. Interestingly, Thar desert boasts of the highest human and livestock
population for any desert stretch in the world. The high pressure on the grazing lands of Thar—against the low
carrying capacity—has led to a situation of worsening aridity in Thar. Analysis
of pictures transmitted by satellites show that Thar has the potential to
gobble up fertile farm lands.
Even Aravalli mountain ranges are fast losing their
vegetation due to the process of
aridity. As it is, the Aravalli mountain ranges spread over an area of about
5,00,000 sq.km acts as a natural barrier checking the advance of
the Thar desert towards
eastern Rajas. The Jodphur-based
Central Arid Zone Research Institute (CAZRI) has developed a range of cost
effective techniques for stabilizing sand dunes, pasture and range land
management, horticultural expansion, water management and wind energy
utilization.
As part of the strategy to support horticulture and
agriculture in the poor soil conditions of the Thar desert,
the CAZRI scientists have successfully
introduced versatile fruit earning Ber trees and oil yielding jojoba
plants in the hostile environs of Thar.
The researchers have also perfected a technology to overcome the complex
problem of mining muck being heaped up haphazardly by mine operators in the
desert stretches of India.
Though the Indira Gandhi Nahar Pariyojana (IGNP) has brought
greenery to the vast stretches of the Thar desert,
it has also brought in wake problems of salinization and water logging
resulting in the creation of wasteland.
It is now around three decades since the first UN Conference
on desertification was held in Nairobi
to evolve a package of strategies to end the menace of desertification .But
then the problem of desertification continues to haunt the mankind with
undimmed vigour. Of course, now there is a growing realization that the slow
and faltering progress achieved in
controlling desertification is mainly due to the non-involvement of the local
communities in the war against sand dunes.
(Copyright,
India News and Feature Alliance)
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Cure For Chronic Disorders:BOOSTING STEM CELL RESEARCH, by Radhakrishna Rao,24 February 2006 |
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PEOPLE AND THEIR PROBLEMS
New Delhi, 24 February 2006
Cure For Chronic
Disorders
BOOSTING STEM CELL
RESEARCH
By Radhakrishna Rao
India has made spectacular strides in
space research and nuclear power generation. It is now preparing the ground to
find a niche in stem cell research to find a cure to many of the hitherto incurable diseases. Along
with countries like Australia,
China, Japan and South
Korea, India
is now looking at stem cell research as a way to get ahead in biotech. With the
Christian fundamentalists in the US succeeding in influencing the Bush Administration into
putting many restrictions of stem cell
research on “ethical grounds” countries in the Asia Pacific region are all set to emerge in the forefront
of the stem cell research.
As pointed out by
D.Balasubramanian, Chairman of the Stem cell Task Force of the
Department of Biotechnology (DBT),”India is especially interested in clinical
applications of stem cells in ophthalmology, cardiology and spinal cord repair” .In particular, he stated
that a key objective is to promote stem cell city clusters across
Hyderabad, Mumbai, Bangalore and Pune. These clusters, observes
Balasubramanian, would link all publicly and privately-funded research groups within a city, enabling them
to share facilities, ideas and research
and business opportunities. Right at
the moment, around 200 scientists are actively involved in various aspects of
stem cell research in India.
The Mumbai-based
Reliance Life Sciences is planning to focus on research programme aimed at
developing the use of bone marrow stem cells for treating cardiac disorders.
Similarly, the Bangalore-based National Centre for Biological Sciences and the Pune-
based National Centre of Cell Sciences are actively engaged in stem cell
research with a particular stress on
finding a cure for other wise incurable ailments.
The Hyderabad-based L.V.Prasad Eye Institute is among a few
medical centres in the world that have been putting the fruits of stem cell
research to good use. Here doctors take
about one millimeter limbal tissue from the healthy eye of the patient .culture them on an appropriate medium and graft it on into
the diseased eye. Such limbal stem cell
treatment is available only in a handful of countries. On the other hand,
Christian Medical College (CMC),Vellore,
plans to use the stem cells derived from the bone marrow to treat chronic liver
failure and to regenerate tissue to treat heart diseases and traumatic brain
injuries.
The All India Institute of Medical Sciences(AIIMS)in New
Delhi, which is working to treat cardiac disorders using stem cells has
subjected more than 30 patients suffering from heart related ailments to stem
cell treatment and found in majority of
the cases the dead heart tissues
stood revived. The AIIMS is now planning to use stem cell therapy for
treating diabetes, which in recent years
has assumed epidemic proportion.
Meanwhile, the DBT has mooted a proposal to set up a
national registry of mysenchymal stem cells derived from the bone marrow of an adult
that can be used for a variety of clinical trials. The mesenchymal stem
cells are endowed with the potential
to develop into mature cells that
produce fat, cartilege, bone tendons and muscles. As pointed out by Satish
Totey, Research Director of the Bangalore-based
Manipal Stem Cell Research Centre, the mesenchymal stem cells have a tendency to
differentiate into skeletal and fibrous tissues,
more easily. Totey says that they are also more easily accepted by the body and
have a far fewer chances of getting rejected. As it is, clinical trials have
shown that mesenchymal stem cells injected into the heart could replace scarce
tissues that development after heart
attacks with healthy new tissue.
As things stand now, the researchers are quite optimistic
about treating lifestyle diseases such as diabetes, liver disorders and heart
ailments. Right at the moment, research is proceeding apace to cure juvenile
diabetes with stem cells. Essentially,
stem cells are akin to “nature’s blank slates” capable of developing into any
of more than 200 cells types that make up the human body. As such, the stem
cell research offer the possibility
of replacing the “faulty” and “malfunctioning” tissues
and pave the way for curing hitherto incurable ailments.
Stem cells grow into virtually any kind of tissue in the human body when nurtured properly. The
new stem cell lines, researchers hope, can replace the old and worn out
cells within the human body, increasing
longevity and serving as a miracle cure
for degenerative diseases .But then researchers need to cover much ground and go long way before
they succeeded in perfecting the stem cell therapy for treating human ailments.
Clearly and apparently, the cord blood collected from the umbilical cord is an
excellent repository of stem cells and is considered a better alternative than
anything else for us in transplants for people suffering from leukemia and
other immune related disease.
Normally, cord blood is collected before the placenta is
delivered. A bay’s umbilical cord blood, which is otherwise discarded, is a
rich sources of stem cells endowed with the ability to regenerate and replace a
variety of tissues, in recent years,
the concept of cord banking is catching
on in India. Interestingly, the cord
blood bank which store baby’s cord blood in liquid nitrogen for a period 21
years for a fee of around Rs.60,000 is considered a “biological insurance”
since the child from whose umbilical cord the blood was collected can stand to
benefit from it at any stage of his life. The Chennai-based Cryocell has set up
facilities to preserve cord blood .Similarly, Life cell, yet another private stem cell bank in Chennai says that about 1,000 expectant parents have enrolled
to bank the cord blood stem cells.
The recently-set up Bangalore-based Cryostem Karnataka Pvt
Ltd is a cord blood stem cell bank as well as research centre. As pointed out
by its Director Dr.S.G.A.Rao, “Cryostem
Karnataka is both a service oriented and
research based company involved in stem cell banking’ He also drove home the
point that the company is involved in embryonic stem cell research for developing novel therapeutic clinical applications.
Going further, Dr.Rao observed, “We are looking forward to establishing a
specialized stem cell based transplant therapy and related clinical research.”
In a related development, Dr. P.Srinivasna, Director of the
Jeevan Blood Bank in Chennai has
unveiled a plan to launch a
public cord blood bank to be run on a “no loss,
no profit basis”. The concept of a public cord blood bank, to be run on a no-loss- no- profit basis, centres round the idea that
parents donate the cord blood of heir
baby to a central banking facility for
use by anybody who needs it. By all means, the therapeutic potentials of the
cord blood stem cells is considered as one of the path-breaking discoveries of the 21st century. ---INFA
(Copyright,
India News and Feature Alliance)
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WHO Warning:TACKLING THE CHALLENGE OF MALARIA, by Radhakrishna Rao, 11 February 2006 |
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PEOPLE AND THEIR PROBLEMS
New Delhi, 11 February 2006
WHO Warning
TACKLING THE
CHALLENGE OF MALARIA
By Radhakrishna Rao
The ancient disease of malaria has become a major public
health challenge of the 21st
century with more than one million people getting killed world wide each year
by this scourge, which not long back, was believed to be vanquished once for
all .Though the incidence of malaria is estimated to be highest in the
resources poor sub-Saharan Africa, the epidemic continues to pose a serious threat to most of the tropical
countries.
In the Indian context, though much progress
has been achieved in curbing the
incidence of malaria, in recent years
the proliferation of slums and shanty towns
in the urban areas of the country has contributed in a big way to the
explosive spread of the disease.
In fact, the conventional method of monitoring
the potential breeding
ground of the disease causing mosquito
strains across the Indian urban sprawl has become a cumbersome
exercise in terms of money and time .As
such, the New Delhi-based Malaria
Research Centre (MRC) has been making use of the data made available by a
string of earth observation and
weather monitoring satellites to map the potential malariogenic areas in
the country In the long run , repeated observation from space over a period of time, can provide
comparable data which will ad to the
malarial eradication measures.
In recent years, the malaria control programme in India and in other parts of the tropical world has run into
a problem. Following the disease causing parasites fast developing resistance
to the once potent anti-malarial drugs and the mosquito strains spreading
the disease-developing resistance to
a range of hitherto potent
pesticides.
Though a number of vaccines meant to provide protection
against malaria are under various stages of development, testing and trial,
none of them has been cleared for a regular and routine use. Meanwhile, a
malarial vaccine under trial has shown good results during clinical tests in Mozambique.
This vaccine, developed by the pharmaceutical giant Glaxosmithkline Biolgicals (GSK)
along with Path Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI) was tried on children in Mozambique. Monitoring
of the children who were given three-dose regimen of the vaccine showed that
they were protected for 18 months.
But then as pointed out by Jean Stephen, President of GSK
Biologicals, “several more years of
clinical investigations will be needed before this vaccine is ready for
licensing “ On the other hand, Dr.
Melinda Morse, Director of Path MVI crated with the objective of overcoming the barriers in the malarial vaccine development has this to say: “The
ability of this vaccine to protect children from severe malaria for at least 18
months makes it a very promising, potential public check tool for the developing world.” Going
further Morse observed: “We are committed to making an affordable, safe and
effective malarial vaccine available as quickly as possible to those who need
it most”.
In a related development a team of French scientists at
Pasteur Institute under the leadership of Prof. Pierre Drulhe has reported
about the trials of a malarial vaccine that mimics the natural immunity some
people develop against the disease .But the
biggest problem associated with a malarial vaccine is that the antigen a
vaccine could target may vary depending on what stage the parasite is at in its
life cycle .Clearly and apparently, this implies that a single vaccine might not work against all strains of the parasites.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned
the global drug outfits that they risked
destroying the effectiveness of the
drug if they market drugs made from artemisenin except in combination with
other, older malarial drugs. For long, the plant artemisenin has been used as a sure shot cure to treat malaria by the
Chinese.
According to Arata
Kochi, WHO’s Head of Malaria, “our
biggest concern right now is to treat
patients with safe and effective medication and to avoid the problem of drug
resistance”. Kochi
also drove home the point that “If we lose ACTS (artemisinen combination
therapy) we will no longer have a cure for malaria and it will probably be at
least ten years before a new one can be discovered”.
The WHO sources reveal that drug resistance is now a major
problem in the fight against malaria. For instance, sulfa doxine pyrimethanine,
which was hundred per cent effective
about two decades ago, has now lost much of its punch. According to Kochi, “so far, no treatment failures due to artemisinen
drug resistance have been documented,
but we are watching the situation very attentively”.
Meanwhile, researchers working on devising new and
novel struggles to fight malaria are veering
round the view that climatic fluctuations could be used to predict malarial
epidemics .Researchers are confident
that the system which is based on computer models of climate change can
predict outbreaks up to five months in
advance.
For example in Botswana, the national malaria control
programme has succeeded in putting in place an early warning system based on
population dynamics rain fall and health
surveillance to predict and detect unusual changes in the seasonal pattern of the disease. Yet another
study on the influence of climate on the spread of malaria shows that
monitoring rainfall and sea surface temperature could be used to predict the
onset of malarial season one month in advance.
(Copyright,
India News and Feature Alliance)
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India’s Ambitious Programme:TOWARDS INNOVATIVE ROBOTS, by Radhakrishna Rao,3 February 2006 |
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PEOPLE AND THEIR PROBLEMS
New Delhi, 3 February 2006
India’s Ambitious Programme
TOWARDS INNOVATIVE ROBOTS
By Radhakrishna Rao
The science and technology of building robots has received a
quickening impetus from the advances in planetary research. As it is, the
American Administration’s strong push for an increasing frequency of manned
space flights in the years ahead could open up the frontiers for engineering
newer and innovative robot systems capable of handling challenging tasks and
using the tool the way people do,” We were told by the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration (NASA) that how can robots support manned missions on the
Moon and Mars before people get there, while they are up there and after they
are left, said Dr.Rodney Brooks, Director of the Computer Science and
Artificial Intelligence Laboratory of Massachussetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Incidentally, Brooks was the architect of the robotics-based
sojourner probe launched by the American space agency NASA in 1997. Without
doubt, sojourner was considered a bold experiment in robotics. In fact, the
current thrust of Dr. Brooks’ laboratory is on endowing the robots with skills
and intelligence that are useful to the people. It is envisioned that in the none-too-distant a future, robots will
wheel around the hospitals, houses and offices.
In Japan,
where the rapidly ageing population has become a big social challenge, the
current focus of robotics research on designing smart machines that would
ultimately serve as the “companions and faithful servants” of the neglected
elderly population. “The next generation of robots now coming up on to the
market will improve the daily life of our ageing population”, said a spokesman
of the Osaka Perfecture Government in Japan. The Japan Robot Association
expects the so-called companion robots and other robots for the home to be the
biggest future growth market, comprising around 50% of the robots by 2010.
Nearer home, the Hyderabad-based International Institute of
Information Technology (IIIT) has unveiled an ambitious programme for designing
and developing a range of robots for a variety of applications—from education
and research to surgical and medical purposes. The Robotics Research Laboratory
of IIIT has a tie-up with the Carnegie Mellon University of USA. According to
P.J. Narayanan, Director of IIIT, the robotics development programme of the IIIT has been planned in
two over-lapping phases.
While the phase-1 will concentrate on building the necessary
level of capabilities in robotics and
associated technologies, the Phase-11 will focus on research and
technology development and the identification and implementation of robotics
applications. Meanwhile, the IIIT’s
robotics laboratory is developing
a low cost, versatile robot equipped
with a stereo cameras, sonar larger
range finders and inertial sensors to help it navigate through hazardous
environment.
On the other hand, the Switzerland-based company by name
K-Team has developed a robot that functions as a camel jockey. According to
Alexander Colat, Managing Director of K-Team, “we are aiming at making this
mechanical system as close to human jockey as possible”. Ultimately the
objective is to make camel races in United Arab Emirates (UAE) a totally robot
driven affair. Interestingly, the robotic jockey is sprayed with scent
traditionally used by human jockeys. “It was important for us that the camel
recognizes and accepts the robot so we had to make him as human as possible”,
said Colat. Perhaps the most important feature of this robot jockey is that it
has been designed to show gestures similar to those of a human jockey.
Currently, the major thrust of robotics development
programme is on using artificial intelligence to endow the machine with a
greater degree of versatility. There are also efforts to develop robots capable
recognizing human faces and human voice. Here, the emerging research discipline
of speech recognition is being used by the robotics engineers.
Researchers feel that use of advanced artificial
intelligence would help robots mimick humans in many ways. It surmised that AI
would help a robot to reason, discriminate, think and generate ideas depending
upon the situation. As it is, AI implies simulation of the human intelligence
process by smart devices that interact with their immediate environment,
develop a power of reasoning and are capable of arriving at specific
conclusions.
On another front, the rapid advances in nanotechnology,
neural networking and Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) have contributed
in a substantial manner to the task of developing intelligent robots that are
capable of learning and self correction. Similarly, endeavours are on to equip
robots with fault tolerant systems.
Because robots never get tired and are not bothered by
monotony, they can become an ideal supplement to human labour. Moreover, robots
can function even under hostile conditions and hazardous environment. Further,
robots can easily handle tasks involving manual labour. For instance, it can
clean up office corridors and move from one floor to another by itself,
cleaning passages, along a programmed route and avoiding obstacles with sensors
it carries.
In fact, robots have no substitutes when it comes to
tackling dangerous situations and handling hazardous substances. They can
easily detect landmines and bombs and also defuse them. In addition, they can
go deep down the earth’s crust, where temperatures are intolerable and look for
buried treasure. Robots are now being routinely employed for handling dangerous
chemicals and in operating the nuclear reactors. In majority of cases, the
operator of the robot controls and manipulates the machine from a safe
distance. Similarly, the robots meant to diffuse explosive devices are equipped
with cameras, sensors and grippers.
More importantly, robots can also be passed into service to
rescue humans caught under the debris of a collapsed building. Significantly, a
robot christened Dervish developed by Stephen Salter of the University of Edinburgh
has the capacity to withstand the force of about eleven tonnes anti-personal
mines during the search and rescue operations. In the area of medicine and
health care, micro and mini robots are used to carry out certain types of
complicated surgeries involving very minute parts of the human organs. In fact,
these robots help surgeons perform delicate procedures that would be otherwise
to fine for human hands.
As a matter of fact, the current research trend in the area
of robotics is centered round mimicking natural systems as close as possible
and turn robots into self-controlled autonomous bodies. Robots employed in
space missions are to a large extent autonomous entities.
Using robots in industrial production, especially in
automobile plants have many advantages. For they can work with precision and
accuracy for long hours without getting tired. No doubt, they ultimately help
improve productivity as well as the quality of production. Use of robots also
makes for a decrease in the production cost. It has been computed that one
robot can perform the job of two to five
persons. In the years ahead, robots will substitute human labour at a vastly
enhanced frequency.---INFA
(Copyright,
India News and Feature Alliance)
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Death for Death:MERCY PETITION AND THE PRESIDENT, by Justice Panachand Jain (Retd),26 January 2006 |
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PEOPLE AND THEIR
PROBLEMS
New Delhi, 26 January 2006
Death for Death
MERCY PETITION AND
THE PRESIDENT
By Justice Panachand
Jain (Retd)
If we look at the history of the criminology, “eye for an
eye” and “death for death” was the standard response of the society in the
past. Even today in the Middle-East, for
many of the offences, the accused are publicly stoned to death. However, if more than 80 countries in the
world have abolished capital punishment, there must be weighty ground behind
such a policy.
In Lachma Devi’s case, the Supreme Court observed that “a
barbaric crime does not have to be visited with barbaric penalty”. It was a case where the Rajasthan High Court
awarded death penalty by hanging in public.
Justice Krishna Iyyer in Mohd. Giasuddin’s case observed in his
inimitable style “progressive criminology across the world will agree that ……”
the infliction of harsh and savage punishment is thus a realm of the past and
regressive time. We strongly feel that
humanitarian wind blow into the prison barricades”.
One of the major arguments against capital punishment is its
irreversibility. Miscarriage of justice
cannot be ruled out. Courts are not infallible.
Many cases are planted. Witnesses
so often tell lies. Fabrication of cases
by police is not uncommon. We frequently
hear of false encounters. Against this
backdrop, can we totally rule out the possibility of an innocent person being
hanged? The Constitution makers in
Article 72 of the Constitution of India laid down this principle and has
empowered the President of India to grant pardon and further ordained to
commute death sentence to life imprisonment.
It was reported that the Home Ministry advised President
Kalam that Dhananjoy Chatterjee should be shown no mercy and the sentence of
death penalty be carried out. But at the
same time European Union in its communication addressed to the Government of
India had advised for cancellation of death sentence. Whatever may be the circumstances Dhananjoy
was hanged.
The President in 50 cases where death penalty has been
awarded, has advised the Home Ministry, Government of India to show mercy. This has evoked wide spread media coverage
and public debate.
A century ago in England, a servant used to be
hanged in public for the theft of a spoon or a piece of bread. It so happened that at the time of public
hanging it was reported that many persons lost their purses due to
pick-pocketing. Consequently it was
realized that the punishment by hanging had no deterrent effect and the
punishment of death penalty, was abolished.
The Constitution Bench in Trivedi Ben’s case has held that
inordinate delay in disposal of mercy petitions would be material for commuting
the death penalty to life imprisonment. Under Article 7 of the Constitution of
India, President has power to grant pardons, reprieves, respites or remissions
of punishment or to suspend remit or commute the sentence of any person
convicted of any offence in all cases in which the sentence conferring the
power on the President is to correct possible judicial errors for no human
system of judicial administration can be free from imperfection.
In countries which have not abolished the death penalty, in
all cases commutation of the sentence of death should normally be considered
favourable and for achieving this objective the International Organization came
with a covenant titled as International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,
1966. Our country is a party to it. Article 6 of the Covenant reads as under:
Every human being has the inherent right to life; any one sentenced to death
shall have the right to seek pardon or commutation of sentence. Amnesty pardon or commutation of the sentence
of death may be granted in all cases.
The Covenant thus empowers the President to commute the
sentence of death to life imprisonment. It ordains that it may be granted in
all cases. A covenant is a treaty or agreement which if ratified creates
binding international obligation for the country concerned.
There has been a sea-change in the living conditions and
thinking all over the world during the last one century. The philosophy behind the capital punishment
which guided the framers of Indian Penal Code more than 145 years ago cannot
hold water today. We should take note of
the winds of change. The civilized
society should think of reforming rather than retribution.
The abolishment of death penalty proclaim that capital
punishment is as fundamentally wrong as a cure for crime, as charity is wrong
as a cure for poverty. They also argue
that the state does not have a right to take her citizens’ life, as life was
not given by the State.
The death penalty thus in terms of the recommendation of the
Law-Commission of India
and the covenant of 1966 be abolished and instead life imprisonment in such
cases be defined to mean imprisonment for the life without any reduction under
no circumstances. Separate rules be
prescribed for dealing with the prisoners during the full term of
punishment.---INFA
(Copyright,
India News and Feature Alliance)
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