Conflict of Interest + Muslims At High posts

I was reading about our Attorney Generals and Solicitor Generals of India today and was startled to read about the conflicts of interest that these guys deal with. Sample this:

"The ongoing legal battle in the patent case of anti-cancer drug Glivec has taken a serious turn. Gopal Subramaniam, former solicitor general of India who represented  Government of India in the case, is now representing pharmaceutical company Novartis. What's more, Rohinton Nariman who recently took over as solicitor general from Subramaniam was earlier representing Novartis in the same case."

or this:

"Vahanvati (First Muslim Attorney General of India) being able to advise the Government of India on the Cairn-Vedanta deal though his son Essaji had worked on the transaction. This was subsequently downplayed by the government."

Now some of the conflicts are bound to come since these guys were once leading lawyers and corporates might have hired them for high stakes cases, but the two instances above clearly seem to be the ones where they could have recused themselves. 

By the way I wrote Muslim in front of Vahanvati to hghlight another important thing. There has been only one  muslim Attorney General and one Muslim cabinet secretary in history of India. Surprisingly or unsurprisingly Indian Army and Navy have never been headed by a Muslim. Indian Air-force had a Muslim chief though - ACM Idris Latif from 1982 - 1985.

The facts turned out to be startling to me. So I thought I will just go and check how many Muslims have actually taken up posts which are not ceremonious and selection is not via elections:

Post (in order of constitutional precedence)	Number of Appointees	Number of Muslim Appointees
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court	39	3
Speaker	16	0
Deputy Chairpersons of the Planning Commission	24	0
CAG	11	0
Chief Election Commissioner	18	1
Attorney General	13	1
Cabinet Secretary	30	1
Air Chief Marshall	24	1
Chief of the Army Staff	27	0
Chief of the Naval Staff	23	0

*Could not find data for UPSC. Excluded two foreigners from Naval Staff.

Though we say that 18% of our population is Muslims, Muslims only account for 3% of the total posts above. The thing only has the following two possible explanations:

A) Muslims represent a small number in the pool from which these guys are selected (e.g. IAS for CEC, CAG) and the selection is purely on the basis of merit. 

B) Selection is biased against Muslims. 

Chief of Army seems to be the contentious thing. Remains interesting to see if GOI will be willing to appoint a Muslim there. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_order_of_precedence
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chief_Justices_of_India
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speaker_of_Lok_Sabha
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deputy_Chairman_of_the_Planning_Commission
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comptroller_and_Auditor_General_of_India
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_Election_Commissioner_of_India
http://www.downtoearth.org.in/content/gopal-subramaniam-rohinton-nariman-swap-places-novartis-patent-case
First AG and SG - M. C. Setalvad and  C.K. Daphtary

Pseudo-Secular

I was reading a report in 'The Hindu' that VP Hamid Ansari may be re-appointed to the post since his conduct has been laudatory. What hit me in the article was that in case he is not appointed, the ruling party will look out for other Muslim candidates from the party.

The nonchalance with which this statement was written amuses me. Should merit and suitability not be the  important criteria to determine a candidate for any constitutional body? Is the Congress party secular as it claims it is?

The opposite of love is not hate - it is indifference. If BJP is blatantly pro Hindus, isn't Congress pro Muslims. The right wing parties have always claimed that by advocating that -  Sharia holds precedence over Indian Civil law for Muslims, Congress party has always appeased minorities. But somehow this argument never struck a chord with me. If the Judiciary feels that there is sufficient ground for a parallel civil law which does not interfere with proper functioning of the country, then why not.

But, proposing a law like 4.5 percent reservation for Muslims in government institutions is contentious. In an ideal secular scenario, the rights of citizens are independent of the faith they profess. Is it not a disadvantage for citizens of other faiths that their compatriots are being given precedence only because they practice a specific religion?



References -
http://www.archive.org/stream/indiaasaseculars033124mbp/indiaasaseculars033124mbp_djvu.txt

Clinton

Awesome guy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DI7u-TytRU&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3L2513JFJsY&feature=related

Freedom of Speech and Danish Cartoons

I am reading the controversy about the Danish Cartoons one last time after watching Salman Rushdie speak at the India Today's conference today. He spoke on the freedom of speech and expression and the one thing that I absolutely liked about his speech was a statement "You can and should savagely criticize an idea if you don't like it but you should be polite with people".

I liked his progressive thinking.

I don't know why I started about reading the Danish controversy again and I still don't know whether denigrating people's religions just to espouse hoopla is correct. I sometimes wonder if the portrayals are the result of the thinking "just because we can, we will".

Mental Note - Danish controversy

A Danish newspaper, Jyllands Postem  invited 40 editors to depict how Prophet looked like. 12 of them sent their version to the newspaper which was published in October 2006.  Portraying prophet is prohibited (in Sunnis especially). The major controversy arose as a result of a specific cartoon by one Kurt Westergaard who showed Mohammad wearing a turban with a bomb inside it! Obviously, he got multiple death threats due to the cartoon. He was also bestowed an honor by Germany's Angela Merkel for brave journalism!

PS: Rushdie talked about a book called Slaughterhouse Five. Checked it out and seems like an interesting read. Will read it if I get time and of course if the page count is low. 

Operation Entebbe

Read an article on Israeli counter terrorist rescue mission in Uganda - Operation Entebbe - today.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Entebbe