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IN-FOCUS
The Power of Truth
The Morung Express MonDAy 17 ocTobER 2011 vol. vI IssuE 285
Women for Peace, Democracy
T
he 2011 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to a trio of women's rights activists: President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Leymah Gbowee of Liberia, and Tawakkul Karman of Yemen. The Norwegian Nobel Committee stated that this year's award was for promoting women’s rights through peacebuilding work in Liberia and Yemen. The award, was shared between Liberia’s Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa’s first democratically elected female president; Leymah Gbowee, who mobilized women across ethnic and religious lines to bring an end to war in Liberia; and Tawakkul Karman, head of Women Journalists Without Chains, who played a leading part in the struggle for women’s rights and democracy and peace in Yemen. While many had expected the Norwegian Nobel Committee to acknowledge those who had played a leading role in the Arab Spring it was however pointed out that the committee’s larger goal was to highlight that the freedom and rights of women was an important prerequisite to a society becoming truly democratic. The relevance of this message for our present Naga context requires some introspection on our part more so at a time when our Naga women want their rights for political representation addressed. In a sense therefore the message for us seems to be that democracy and having election is just not enough and the more important thing is to measure the quality of our democracy and how it is able to address the rights of our women. The more you think about it the more it makes sense that for democracy to become real and inclusive in the Naga context, women must find themselves in decision making, whether this is realized through reservation or otherwise. Coming back to this year’s award, the recognition was as much about women’s rights as it was also about the courage of conviction shown by women leaders to address the confronting challenges on the ground—whether it was violence, war or oppression against women. What is important to note here is that these are not just women issues but common problems of peace, freedom and development. It goes to show that women can make a difference in addressing the big problems of our days. This year’s Norwegian Nobel Committee must be applauded for taking the lead in breaking the age old stereotype which looks at women as mere sexual objects and victims. Most of our present day institutions and laws look upon women as victims and not on what they can offer to the present state of affairs. Hopefully the award to the three women will help in making that fundamental shift in changing the negative impression about women and see them as equal partners and in some case more than equal partners as they are proving that when it comes to leadership and capability to solve problems. In our Naga context also, women seem to reason better and are more creative in approaching challenges. This is a big plus compared to our menfolk, especially the older generation, who tend to be hasty, unreasonable, unimaginative and rigid in their approach. Given the promise of having womenfolk in tackling the problem/s in our present state of affairs, we need more women to take up leadership role in the public arena. Let us take inspiration from one of this year’s peace prize recipients, Leymah Gbowee who helped found the Women in Peacebuilding Network which pushed for a peace settlement in Liberia using aggressive nonviolent means, including prayer.
S O U N D BITE They (Maoists) do not pursue any ism, they have no ideals. They are ‘supari’ killers, jungle mafia. People hate violence. We initiated the peace process. We will continue the negotiations, but you (the rebels) have to lay down arms…I am giving you (Maoists) a seven-day ultimatum to lay down guns. Think over it. We will not tolerate any more violence. Killings and negotiations cannot go hand in hand West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee
lEfT wiNg |
The Fight For Integrtiy
Corruption: More Moral than a Material problem
C
orruption is the talk of the day. Anna Hazare’s movement against corruption has rocked the whole nation. We wonder why India, the land of many religions and deep rooted spiritual traditions and values is suddenly caught up with such a menace. It seems corruption has become part and parcel of the social life of the Indians – omnipotent and all pervasive. Deeply rooted, its toxins have tainted all the sections of the society. Could it be that corruption is the greatest single bane of our society today? Sixty four years and still in fetters! Mahatma Gandhi, the father of the nation, was indeed wise when he said there are seven things that will destroy us: Wealth without work; Pleasure without conscience; Knowledge without character; Religion without sacrifice; Politics without principle; Science without humanity; Business without ethics. Someone rightly said: corruption is authority plus monopoly minus transparency. The fight against corruption, I believe, is more a moral than a physical/material one. The Jan Lokpal Bill is not going to cure the cancer within. It is said that the more corrupt the state, the more laws will be enacted. India, the planet earth’s largest democratic nation, claims to have one of the best constitutions in the world. Corruption, therefore, is not the result of poor or insufficient policing, and can’t be controlled by legislation or the sword of legal penalties. It is all about moral failings – the culture of greed and easy money. It is a question of the failure of the moral system. The strength of a nation is not derived from laws and regulations but the integrity of the home of the individual. Integrity has no need of rules and regulations. The fight, thus, is more for integrity of life which seems to perish in the summer months of success in one’s life. Integrity is the state of being complete, undivided, intact and unbroken. It is the quality of being unimpaired, of sound moral principles, upright, honest and sincere. Integrity or impeccability necessarily demands that we honour our word and commitments. It is demanded of all, but especially of persons who hold positions of responsibilities. As the Latin proverb warns us, corruption of the best is the worst of all. If the moral system fails, everything fails. It is not so much what we profess but what we practise that gives us integrity, reminds Francis Bacon. To reach a great height a person needs to have a great depth. And the depth is derived from moral principles. It is hard for an empty bag to stand upright! The true perfection of man lies not in what man has, but in what man is. The integrity of the nation is the natural consequence of the integrity of every citizen. It is the essence of everything successful. The greatest triumph in life is, therefore, to be truly who we are called to be. Tarcisius Toppo Bosco Communicationsm, Dimapur
THE EDIT PAGE
C O M M E N T A R Y
Ashok Malik
Cricket’s crime syndicate
Are shadowy syndicates in India pumping $50 billion into the cricket economy as illegal bets? Will legalising betting rid cricket of scandal and shame?
R
ecently, during the trial in London of Pakistani cricketers accused of match fixing, the prosecution lawyer made damaging revelations about illegal betting syndicates in India, run by “shadowy figures”. These syndicates were the conduits of $50 billion worth of bets in the cricket economy, he said. Separately, but perhaps relatedly, the International Cricket Council has been urging authorities in India to legalise cricket betting. It argues regulated betting syndicates will be less prone to fixing matches and bribing cricketers. While cricket betting should certainly be legalised in India, will this alone end the fixing challenge? This belief ignores how contemporary fixing works. In the 1990s, fixing was straightforward: You paid a cricket team to lose a match. The captain — maybe both captains — was essential to pre-deciding the result of a game. To ensure success, you had to coordinate buying off a number of influential cricketers playing a particular match. Sometimes a bribed cricketer may not have known that his team mate too had been paid money by the same syndicate. This was an expensive operation simply because it depended on a number of actors (cricketers) delivering on their individual deals. If some honest and incorruptible cricketer decided to bowl a great spell or score a fabulous, gamechanging hundred, the fixer’s best laid plans would crash. All this made match fixing extremely difficult; it depended on too many variable inputs. Resultantly, ‘episode fixing’ arose as a product that the market needed. This entailed pre-determining or rigging specific episodes related to specific bets. For instance, if a batsmen was 99 not out at tea, you could bet on him not reaching a century and, in fact, getting out in the first over after the break. This would appear a legitimate bet. If you managed to make contact with the batsman while he was sipping tea and settled on the right price, you would be very rich within a few minutes. This was the genesis of spot fixing. Yet, that is not all. Between 2000 and now a new animal has taken over the betting business: Online betting.
Betting websites are fascinating in their operations and in many ways approximate trading in the stock market. The odds for a match are set not by an individual bookie or a consortium of wise men but by the market. Take a simplistic example. Australia is playing England at Trent Bridge. My friend and I place the first bets on an online betting site. I bet £100 on England and my friend bets £50 on Australia. Instantly, the odds are set at 100:50 or 2:1. A third man comes in and places £10,000 on Australia. Immediately, the odds change and lopsidedly favour Australia. That aside, online betting sites can function as betting exchanges, allowing you to buy or sell contracts, in the manner of a stock market. You can ‘short the market’ by agreeing to sell a contract cheaper than the market price, but without holding it, only because you know that an event/episode will take place on the field shortly that will cause contract prices to drop and allow you to buy cheap. Now what if you paid money to influence that event/episode? Such a transaction would be at the heart of
spot fixing. What if you disagreed with the odds the market has set for a match or a bet? Online betting companies allow you to set your own odds, within certain limits. The weight of money you bring in and the odds you set also have an impact on the overall, market-determined odds. Odds keep changing as a match proceeds. You can bet at various stages of the match and fine-tune your bet given your understanding of the game’s trajectory. If your understanding is determined by insider information — as opposed to merely a cricket fan’s assessment — there’s a fortune waiting. How quickly do odds change in the course of a match? This depends on how fast-paced the game is. An illustration may help. A Test match is being played between England and Australia. England has eight wickets in hand and two sessions of the fifth day in which to score 120 runs to win. The odds are very much in England’s favour. Now the first three overs after lunch are all maidens. Not a single run is scored. The punters and bookmakers
are not moving an inch. They realise three maiden overs mean nothing in the context of the match. Translate this scenario to a Twenty20 match: England needs 100 to win with seven overs to go and five wickets in hand. Over number 14 is a maiden, not one run is scored. The online betting sites go berserk, the odds change massively. Now suppose the batsman had been bribed to play out that maiden over. It does not necessarily follow that England will lose the match. The same batsman could bat with commitment and hit three sixes in the next over he faces, taking his team to victory. His deal — and the fixing syndicate’s interest — may have been limited to predetermining over 14, not on pre-determining the entire match. That is why spot fixing is not always equal to match fixing. Match fixing is often a collateral consequence of spot fixing. Spot fixing is most lucrative when the odds are volatile and when there are high chances of one bad or good over or one dismissal affecting the odds. As such, T20 is better suited to this industry than a five-day Test match. Market statistics bear this out. Cricket — especially T20 cricket — is one of the most bet on sports on betting sites. Betfair (www.betfair.com) is the world’s leading sports betting company. According to insiders, a top golf tournament, say the US Masters, would attract bets worth £2 to 3 million on Betfair. Cricket seems to do better. During the 2010 T20 World Cup in the West Indies, each match drew bets worth £3 million to 4 million. In contrast, the Indian Premier League, which preceded the T20 World Cup by a few days, saw betting amounting to over £12 million per match on Betfair. This is betting, it could be contended, and betting on a legal site. How does it suggest fixing? To be fair it doesn’t. It does indicate though that Indian and Pakistani and South Asian punters — who clearly bring the incremental bets to the Betfair site during marquee cricket tournaments — are investing a king’s ransom on cricket gambling. The motivation for some of them to rig events is strong. The legal status of the betting site makes no difference. Source: The Pioneer
Letters to the editor Response to AAsu statement •-It is compelled to rejoinder inflammatory statement published in newspapers on10/10/2011, by the general secretary of all Assam Students’ Union Tapan Gogoi and Executive Members Manaor Hussain. The statement is ridiculous, hearsay, baseless, unfounded, bogus no head no tail. According to their statement, it is observed that both of them are not original Ahom (Assamese) blood. Their statement is exactly similar the story of ‘Blind men and Elephant’. Accept, the Assam Home Secretary Shri. G.D. Tripathi statement, who visited Merapani Area on 11/10/2011 (Tuesday). He has seen personally with his own eyes the situation and given accurate, correct statement. But Tapan Gogoi and Manaor Hussain statement at sixes and seven, baseless unfounded, bogus and quite contrary only “TRIGGER THE TENSION” among the people living in the border areas. The writer from his boyhood was reading school from lower classes to higher classes in Assam Golaghat, Jorhat and Guwahati etc. During the whole period, he personally contacted, conversation sitting with many age old people of Ahom Assamese about the kinships people of Ahom (Assamese) and the Nagas, not that but also read Ahom (Assamese) Boronge. In addition to Ahom (Assamese) Boronge, age old people Ahom said; the main kinships, relations was during the Burmese invasion Ahom, the Nagas were supported and help a lot. Even Ahom king was allotted “ASYLUM” (SANTUARY) in Nagas soil. At that time the Burmese troops searched the Ahom King and untraced, therefore, the wife of Ahom King Queen (JOYMODI) was severely tortured by the Burmese troops and death. Therefore, her husband Ahom King was constructed (JOYHAGAR) at Sibsagor in memorial of Queen JOYMODI. The Ahom King married Naga lady name (IDALUMI). In this way Ahom (Assamese) people and the Naga people were became one family, thereby loved among Assamese and Nagas continued hundred and hundred year, still exist. Regarding boundary, the Ahom King and Naga chief were made boundary from Brahamaputra, Ladegaor, Dhonder Ali and Golaghat, erected boundary stone pillars triangle shape every interval 300 yards. Therefore, neither Assamese nor Nagas were encroached the original boundary. Every year Nagas were collected annual land taxes who were living within Naga jurisdiction of lands which means Nagaghat smoothly, peacefully continued generations to generations. In 19th century the western people so called British came in India. The British were made rail road from Pandu to Tinsukia between Assam - land and Naga land. After that artificial rail road was used boundary line. For marketing either Assamese or Nagas cross the rail road, whatsoever cross rail road marketing imposed taxes. After India independence, Government introduced electioneering system every state to form government.
Therefore, people of Assam brought foreign nationals illegal immigrants (Bangaladeshis) for their vote bank and allowed them to stay land between Assam and Nagaland. Now illegal immigrant became like (PARASITE PLANTS) embraced and killed indigenous people of both Assam and Nagas. They are working double games; they are inter service intelligence most popularly known ISI so whose fault??? It is Assam fault nobody else. Now, Tapan Gogoi and Manaor Hussain are immature young men, they do not know ABC ancestors relationships of Ahom (Assamese) and Naga people. The first and foremost they should study thoroughly Ahom Assamese Boronge. Do not commit yourself spoil carrier or your good image instigation given by some vested interest. Try to cease such inflammatory statement in near future. Rikhyo Kikon Lotha Octogenarian
Jnu students clarify on fictitious claims
such power to the NPSC to teach media about their ethics? Authorities in power should not try to dictate the media to tune in to their music. If somebody has made unfounded allegations then the aggrieved party can take that person to task. Leave alone the media in this. Media is only a vehicle that carries the opinions of the people. Of course, media can be answerable if it cannot furnish details of the one who has falsely accused somebody. For us common man, we look upon media as our strongest tool to fight corruption, discrimination, nepotism and most of all exposing the corrupt officials. Through media, we hope to raise our genuine voices and get our due share as per our capabilities. Akok Longchar, Dimapur
clarification to news report on ‘Multiple underground tax…’ •-I have the honour to draw your kind attention to your news report ‘Multiple underground tax add to trucker owners’ misery’ on 12 October 2011. The news report mentioned about the Truckers being aware about “one tax” rule enforced in Zunheboto by the Sumi Hoho. Whereas as there is no such rule. The latest resolution taken by the Sumi Hoho in regard to taxation is that it has kept in “abeyance” all forms of contribution (tax) to the Naga underground groups. This particular resolution was published in your newspaper on 10 August 2011. Whether the truckers are aware or not of any such rule, newspapers/reporters should play a properly informed role and confirm facts before being published so as not to misfeed the public. Hoping that this article will be taken in good spirit.
•-The recent rejoinder to Rev. Mhasi’s article given by one Asangba Ricardo titled “Response to Rev Mhasi’s statement on ENPO’s demand for statehood” published in the Morung Express on its September 28, 2011 issue claiming himself to be a research scholar at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, has caught the attention of the eighty Nagaland students currently studying in JNU. This is for general information that there is no one by the name of Asangba Ricardo studying in JNU. We, the Nagaland Students here have taken this matter very seriously and we would not tolerate such fictitious claims. This is not the first instance Ardent reader of your newspaper, where a person has falsely claimed to be a student of Inashe Awomi JNU. In case of such claims in future, we shall be forced to take legal action. It is also requested that the media house be more vigilant towards such wrongful claims. suggestion to nPsc Convenors on behalf of the Nagaland Students, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi – 110067 •-Aspiring candidate of NPSC appreciates the discloKetholenuo Mepfhü-o, Ph.D sure of answer key for the NCS & Allied Preliminary Centre for Historical Studies examination which ensures the transparency in the School of Social Sciences, Studies system. Nevertheless, it has been observed that every year few errors are detected in the answer key disLunghilang Pamai, Ph.D closed by the Commission, for which the Commission Centre for African Studies School of International always invites rectification from the aspiring candidates for the past few years. It is to be mentioned that since the introduction of the Rejoinder to govt MCQ pattern in the Main examination, the answer keys for the same have not been disclosed as yet. It is appre•-Whenever there are write ups about backdoor ap- hended that there might be every possibilities of repeatpointments, the government and its departments are ing the same errors as in the Preliminary examination. always advising the people and the media to confirm The apprehension has been aggravated by the unexpectthe facts before hand. Ironically , the government edly low marks obtained in the optional subjects of the talks about the right of freedom to express but tells main examination (viz NCS & Allied examination 2010). them not to hurl allegations. The truth is without al- Therefore, from the ensuing year, it is suggested that the legations being made public through the media, many Commission may disclose the answer keys of the optional scams would go unheard and unnoticed. NPSC has subjects with an invitation for necessary rectification and also few days back advised media to confirm the alle- thereby clearing atmosphere of doubts. gations against them first from its office. Who vested Anock, Akok, Imli
Letters to the Editor should be sent to: The Morung Express, House No. 4, Duncan Bosti, Dimapur - 797112, Or –email: morung@gmail.com All letters (including those via email) should have the full name and Postal address of the sender. Readers may please note that the contents of the articles, letters and opinions published do not reflect the outlook of this paper nor of the Editor in any form.