Lawyers get litigants talking
Civil Society News New Delhi

In the dour and daunting complex of the Delhi High Court, a few well-appointed rooms in a sequestered corner come alive in a very special way every day. Lawyers, trained to be aggressive and adversarial, serve here in a very different role. As mediators, they bring litigants together for interactions that melt old animosities and result in decisions that would be difficult to achieve at the same speed in court rooms.

Called Samadhan, the Delhi High Court Mediation and Conciliation Centre has in the past three years successfully concluded 1,143 cases together with some 3,000 related matters. Warring parties have gone away satisfied, having reached agreements crafted through a process in which discussion and openness in a confidential environment replace the grim compulsions of the court system.

In a court, lawyers decide what will be revealed in the interests of their clients. The litigants submit themselves to a structured process in which their counsel define the legal impediments and decide on the positions to be taken. Judges then issue orders on facts as they are placed before the court.

In mediation, however, it is the litigants who are encouraged to speak to each other. Nothing they say can be cited as evidence in court. In such an atmosphere of confidentiality they often own up to excesses and look critically at themselves. The mediator facilitates this process —- building trust and helping litigants evaluate the reality in the positions they have been taking. Unlike a judge or an arbitrator, the mediator takes no decisions and doesn’t impose an opinion. It is the parties who decide and even dictate their own agreements which then go back to the court and are legally binding.

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Also read

‘We wanted to do something good for society’
‘We are looking at the Bar of the future’

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An interview with Prof Abhijit Sen, Member, Planning Commission

Civil Society News New Delhi

You can spot Prof Abhijit Sen now and then at public meetings, his long hair and beard setting him apart even among activists.  But Prof Sen is in a class of his own for more reasons than his striking presence. He is a member of the Planning Commission, India’s foremost think tank, and has chaired committees on grain management, rural credit, agricultural costs and prices and more. Development and poverty are subjects he has looked at closely over the years.

Prof Sen is currently on leave from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU).  Unlike many others in academia, Prof Sen steps out of his office to talk to NGOs and peoples’ movements so that he has his own assessment of their ideas.   

As the UPA grapples with drafting a law on food security, Prof Sen is uniquely poised to strike a balance between the demands of activists and the practicalities of grain management.

Right to food campaigners are unhappy with the government’s draft of the proposed law. They have demanded  a universal Public Distribution System (PDS), an increase in entitlements, a wider basket of food, no cash transfers, local procurement etc. 

The right to food movement is on a strong wicket. The movement began in Rajasthan in 2002 when severe drought left people without food or work.  Starvation deaths were reported but the dithering Union government would not release food or declare a state of famine.  Activist groups, like the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, approached the Supreme Court for justice. Since then the court has passed landmark judgments ordering midday meals in schools, a strengthening of government schemes like the Integrated Child Development Scheme, (ICDS), more food entitlements and so on.

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Civil Society News New Delhi

life  is getting tougher for hawkers in Delhi.  Nasiruddin Siddiqui, pradhan of the Reri Patri Sangharsh Morcha, says they are being routinely fleeced, evicted and hounded.  He represents around 100 hawkers who were peacefully selling their wares on a footpath outside Station Road in Shahdara, east Delhi.

For many years, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) would charge them Rs 1 per day, which they dutifully paid.  In September 2007, the MCD told them they would get regular shops if they applied. So the vendors filled up forms, each cost Rs 100, and deposited between Rs 20,000 to Rs 25,000 for those promised shops, says Siddiqui.

The MCD then lapsed into silence. A year later, it sprang a surprise by declaring the hawkers   ‘unauthorized’.  They were told to clear out.  The vendors are now routinely challaned. “Sometimes the challan is for Rs 1,500. The vendor doesn’t even have goods worth that much,” says Siddiqui.

“See, vendors on the footpath are innocent and frightened people. They don’t have the courage to confront officials and say look here I paid for an allotment, where is my money?” says Siddiqui, anger simmering in his voice.   
  
In the run up to the Commonwealth Games, New Delhi is in the throes of a beautification drive. It wants to look green and rich. It doesn’t want slums and hawkers and the working poor.  Instead of the colour and cacophony of the Indian bazaar, it wants the monotony of malls and empty streets.

“We are not against city beautification, but can we be part of it?” asks Siddiqui.

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Saibal Chatterjee New Delhi

In Nepal, a right to information (RTI) law has been in place for “32 months” but it has yet to make its presence felt. In Sri Lanka, freedom of information is a distant dream in the current unstable political scenario. In Pakistan, the Freedom of Information Ordinance was passed in 2002 and its rules notified in 2004, but the impact has been undermined by a weak legislative framework and ineffective implementation mechanism. Bangladesh joined around 75 nations on the RTI map last year and is making rapid strides in moving from a culture of secrecy to one of openness.

These were some of the numerous points of discussion that emerged during a three-day regional workshop, ‘Towards More Open and Transparent Governance in South Asia’, which, among other things, resolved to create a network across political and geographical borders to strengthen right to information regimes in these countries.

The workshop, hosted in the last week of April by the Indian Institute of Public Administration, Delhi, with the support of the World Bank, was designed to push the cause of transparent governance in the region ahead of the World Bank’s own disclosure policy, which takes effect from 1 July, Vikram K Chand, senior public sector management specialist, World Bank, said the workshop was aimed at “creating an enabling environment for discussions on the way forward.”

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Bharat Dogra and Reena Mehta New Delhi

Sanjo was born into a Kol tribal family in Bundelkhand district of Uttar Pradesh (UP). She grew up in extreme poverty. Her family virtually worked as bonded labour. Sanjo toiled hard to map a better life for herself and her family. Voluntary organizations here helped her to make the best use of the government’s laws for the landless. 

Impressed by Sanjo’s courage and selfless service, the poorest families in her village wanted her to contest for the post of pradhan in the panchayat elections of 2005. Sanjo  agreed to stand from the Girudha panchayat of Chitrakut district  but feudal interests conspired with officials to get her name deleted from the electoral rolls. Sanjo had to struggle till the last moment to get her name re-entered . 

Sanjo won the elections with a big margin. Living and working in a feudal, dacoit-infested area, she overcame strong barriers and speeded up development work. She paid  special attention to distribution of land and housing plots for the weaker sections. She learned to ride a motorcycle so that she could travel to remote forest areas. Helped by other panchayat members like Kunti  she took up check dam projects and ensured pension to the elderly.

Sanjo was in Delhi on 24 April to receive the ‘outstanding woman panchayat leader’ award from Gursharan Kaur, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s wife, at the 17th Women’s Political Empowerment Day organized by the Institute of Social Sciences (ISS), New Delhi. Radha Devi and Shobha Sinha were two other women honoured at this function. The event brought together about 700 women panchayat representatives from all over the country.

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Umesh Anand

It hardly requires stating that our court system is extremely stressed. A gigantic number of cases are pending and even if every judge were to work very hard it would take a couple of hundred years to clear the backlog. There are other issues as well. The poor can’t even get to meet good lawyers let alone afford their fees and the innumerable other expenses that have to be borne when a case is filed. A middle-class person has a slightly better chance of accessing the system, but delays and the range of legal options that get exercised in court require financial stamina and personal grit of an extraordinary order. It is not easy to pursue a case even if the law is on your side.

Clearly solutions are needed. If they are to be viable, the solutions will have to come from the legal fraternity itself. Our cover story this month celebrates one such effort to promote mediation as a means of reducing the burden of the courts and sending troubled litigants away with solutions they are happy to own.

The important thing about the work being done in mediation is that it is being led by lawyers and supported by judges. The lawyers are putting in personal time. A mediator is paid fees, but in the Delhi High Court it is a fraction of what a lawyer would earn from a case in court. From at least what we in this magazine could see at the Mediation Centre in the Delhi High Court, these are public-spirited lawyers who seem to believe that mediation is a way of improving the delivery of justice.

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Civil Society News Gurgaon/Noida

Tupperware the world over is synonymous with kitchenware. It is known for its bowls and boxes, its cups and plates. But in the villages of Gurgaon in Haryana, where you won’t find a Tupperware product quite so easily, the company has helped 800 women acquire skills and identities of their own.

Teaming up with Literacy India, an NGO with strong credentials, Tupperware has over the past two years reached out into villages with programmes that provide training in different vocations, giving these women the capacity to earn and changing their status in households.
Tupperware’s involvement goes beyond signing cheques for Literacy India. The company, an American multinational, is driven by a model based on empowerment of women. Its sales force consists of tens of thousands of women who directly sell Tupperware products. In the process they make a living for themselves, but more importantly they feel enriched as individuals.

“The potential of the product and how to market it is about leveraging the potential of women,” says Asha Gupta, managing director of Tupperware in India.

Tupperware believes it has created a “Chain of Confidence” through which women selling the company’s products bond together in friendship and help each other “feel confident about themselves and in their ability to succeed.”

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Jehangir Rashid Srinagar

Kashmir is famous for its arty embroidery and shawls. But ersatz imitations have flooded the market confusing consumers and eating into profits.  Though the Craft Development Institute (CDI) at Srinagar has been able to get Geographical Indicator (GI) status for three important handmade products of Kashmir, lack of infrastructure is proving to be a roadblock and artisans aren’t able to reap benefits from such recognition.

Established in 2004, CDI offers a unique course equivalent to Masters in Business Administration (MBA) in craft development. Graduates of the institute are working on various design development projects and passing on knowledge to  stakeholders.

The CDI’s basic mandate is design development and boosting of artisanal skills.

“CDI wants to protect the intellectual property of this region. We have been successful in getting GI status for Pashmina, Kani shawls and Sozni embroidery. We are hopeful of getting GI status for other arts and crafts in the near future,” says Hakeem Mohammad Iqbal, Coordinator, CDI.

Dwelling on details, Iqbal said GI status was approved for all three in 2008. Kani shawls got GI recognition on July 29, Pashmina on September 12, and Sozni embroidery on November 27. Applications have been moved for GI approval of Kashmir paper mache and Kashmir walnut wood carving. “We are also carrying out research on other arts and crafts. The research document in respect of Khatambandh, Panjra Kaari and Namdha making, is almost complete and the process for approval of GI for these arts and crafts will be taken up in due course,” said Iqbal.

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V Ravichandar

We have a fascination for being a Greater City. So you will have a Greater Bangalore or a Greater Chennai as a panacea for all our current urban ills.  But this is a short - sighted fix that only accentuates our collective woes since the misery is now spread over a marginally larger area. For instance, Bruhat ‘any Indian city’ has to give way to viewing a larger regional area that goes beyond the current thinking of extending the boundaries to cover a few satellite centres. Unless this forms part of the larger vision, any incremental fixes to making an Indian city more livable will lead to further influx causing infrastructural collapse and deterioration in quality of living.

One envisions a ‘RURBAN’ (Rural-Urban continuum) area spreading maybe over 4000 sq  kms that encompasses six to 10 other urban clusters. The future lies in having ‘live and work’ clusters that are urban nodes within the regional network. Any two nodes in the network should have high speed connectivity (rail and road) that allows travel (including international airport access) within two hours. The political leadership and the system will need a huge mindset change since it challenges all conventional thinking about jurisdictional boundaries, administration planning and more. While progressive States have a chance to be pioneers with this proactive thought leadership, it is more likely to be driven by competitive forces such as another State embracing the RURBAN way ahead. 

Chennai City Connect, a three-year-old body advocating partnership between industry/civil society and government has come up with an interesting idea. Most major cities (Chennai included) are experiencing rapid urbanization. The quality of life for citizens across the socio-economic spectrum is in decline. Challenges in provisioning water supply, sanitation, public transport, health, education impacts all citizens, particularly those in the economically weaker sections.

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Kanchi Kohli

On 7th April,  the Hindustan Times reported that a three-page note submitted to the  Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) on Food Security,  substantially  questioned the design of the draft Food Security Bill. This confidential note, which came from the Finance Minister, Pranab Mukherjee’s office, has been quoted to have stated that the draft law does not fulfill the election promises of the Congress’ manifesto. What is also interesting is that the note laid emphasis on the need for food for all and addressed concerns of availability, access and absorption – issues that were missing from the draft of the Bill. A key method of doing this was through a long awaited reform of the Public Distribution System (PDS).

All appreciation for this shift in position from the government, but is it enough? The issue of food security goes beyond the objective of ensuring that everyone has food.  This is critical and pressing. But it should not be delinked from the question of who controls our food from the time it is sown to the point when it reaches our plate.

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Susheela Nair Mahabalipuram

If you want to experience the  spray and swoosh of the sea, head for GRT Temple Bay resort at Mahabalipuram, 60 km from Chennai, a sleek getaway on the shores of the Bay of Bengal. From its humble beginnings as a guest house of the government, it has metamorphosed into an ITDC resort.

The resort used to be a mandatory stopover on the itinerary of visiting dignitaries to Chennai. Prince Charles and Indira Gandhi have stopped at this seaside resort for rest and relaxation. One can still see a tree planted by Prince Charles. On lease from the ITDC, the resort, managed by GRT Hotels & Resorts, Chennai, was renovated and refurbished after it was shattered by the tsunami. Incidentally, it is known for its commendable and concerted efforts at instituting eco-friendly development strategies in most activities.

Sprawling across a 46-acre sylvan paradise and pristine waterfront, the resort is a manifestation of its deep respect for nature. The green freshness of the landscape strikes you at the gate itself.  The entire topography is in complete harmony with nature, and one experiences a sense of quietude and calm. There are beautiful landscapes, an infinity swimming pool, a putting green, a cluster of chalets, villas and cottages placed amidst vast expanses of lush lawns tapering into a beckoning beach. All provide sweeping views of the Bay of Bengal and the historic Shore Temple. Elements of Pallava designs are discernible in the resort’s architecture. While the chalet interiors sport a mix of contemporary and ethnic, the cottage with its breathtakingly sea view will arouse the poet in you. Each room has a wonderful view and well appointed space making staying indoors also pleasurable. All one has to do is to find an ideal spot to chill out!

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