The government finally woke up to this growing problem a couple of years ago when studies by its information technology department estimated the e-waste burden on the country to touch 800,000 metric tonnes by December. It responded by framing the e-waste (management and handling) rules – 2011 which came into effect this month. While the rules seem impressive on paper, environmental groups have expressed concerns about its ability to bring about change due to the sheer oversight of the ground situation.

To begin with, the rules put India along with a select club of nations like the United States and many in Europe to have legislation to regulate and manage electronic waste. Not just that, the rules also propose several ambitious measures to regulate waste.

For instance, according to government data, close to 95 percent of all the electronic waste is currently recycled by the unauthorised sector — scrap dealers. They usually resort to recycling methods that cause great damage to environment and human health, according to various studies conducted by environmental agencies including the Central Pollution Control Board. Printed circuit boards and electronic parts are usually immersed in chemical solutions or burnt to extract small amounts of metals.

The newly framed rules aim to change this situation by entrusting the responsibility of collection and safe disposal of waste with the manufacturers of electronic goods. It mandates manufacturers to collect electronic scrap directly from consumers and route them to authorised recycling centres across the country. The rules also try to address other issues such as restricting the usage of hazardous substances such as lead, cadmium, mercury, PCB, PVR and BFR in electronics.

But all these promising measures in the paper seem far from changing the ground scenario. Here is why.

The environment ministry proposed the electronic waste rules about a year ago, providing companies and other groups affected by the rules enough time to put systems in place for effective compliance before they come into effect this month.

If observations made by environmental NGOs are anything to go by, efforts over the past year to improve disposal mechanisms have been negligible. For instance, information on electronic scrap collection centres for consumers has not been made available in many major cities.

The rules also do not mention the number of collection points, number of authorised recyclers required in cities or the amount of waste to be collected and disposed. Environmentalists believe that this might result in manufacturers setting up a few symbolic collection centres across the country which might not be able to deal with the quantity of waste produced.

For instance, the second largest electronic waste-producing state in the country — Tamil Nadu (responsible for 13 percent of the total waste produced in India) — has only one recycler for the entire state. Other states face similar problems.

Even if the manufacturers and policymakers decide to open more collection centres, bigger problems remain, including persuading people to deliver their old computers and other products to collection centres instead of going to scrap dealers.

But when the local dealer pays handsomely for the scrap, it is doubtful that many would choose to return the waste to the manufacturer for free. Ever since the rules were being made, environmentalists have been negotiating with the government to provide some incentive to people who use electronics so they volunteer to turn in their devices to the companies to get them recycled. But this has not featured in the rules.

Furthermore, according to the study by the Department of Information Technology, there are more than 3,000 scrap dealers across the country. Unless these scrap dealers are given a chance to participate in an authorised recycling system, they will only fight harder to stay in business.

The rules are also completely oblivious to the electronic waste that is imported into the country. A study by the Centre for Science and Environment estimates that close to 50,000 metric tonnes of electronic scrap is imported into the country every year. But the rules have no provisions to control imports.

Though the trans-boundary movement of hazardous waste is banned under an international treaty called the Basel Convention, dealers sneak in consignments of electronic scrap as they are not properly classified. According to environmental activists, most electronic scrap that comes into the country is classified as plastic scrap or mixed waste.

The biggest impediment of all for safely disposing electronics products is India’s record of municipal waste management. Twelve years after the municipal solid waste rules were framed, major metro cities like Chennai have not even got the basics right in terms of segregating waste at source and preventing the environmentally harmful burning of waste. With a track record like that, and the number of Indians using computers and mobile devices only rising, there seems to be little hope that rules will succeed in the marketplace.

While it is best left to our imagination as to why the cartoon, roughly as old as the Indian republic itself, created the controversy now, the government’s reaction to the row is alarming and sets a dangerous precedent. The cartoon shows India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, holding a whip as the father of the Indian constitution, B R Ambedkar, is seated on a snail. It was first published in 1949, and was reprinted in a textbook a few years ago – without anyone batting an eyelid. The cartoonist’s intent was to caricature the slow pace at which the constitution was being finalised.

The government’s decision now to withdraw the cartoon and subsequently review all textbooks could be perceived as an attempt to pacify a certain section of society. Ambedkar is an icon for the cause of the Dalits — India’s former “untouchables” – and is deeply revered by millions in the country today.

But has the Indian state gone too far to regulate the freedom of expression?

A few instances in the past are a case in point. In 2011, the government passed a law to regulate content on the Internet.

In June, New Delhi police sparked an outcry with a heavy-handed crackdown on anti-corruption protesters camped out overnight.

Last August, Gandhian activist Anna Hazare was arrested ahead of his fast against corruption — drawing thousands of protesters onto the streets of the capital. And most recently, the government asked a TV network to move the premiere of the National Award winning ‘The Dirty Picture’ to the late night slot.

It looks like the government is taking a leaf out of Mamata Banerjee’s book. The chief minister of West Bengal sparked an outcry after a university professor was arrested for sharing a cartoon which poked fun at her.

It’s strange to see such apparently mild cartoons causing a ripple in a country’s establishment. It is even more curious as to why the Nehru/Ambedkar cartoon ended up being the sole target of the current row, especially when the textbook contained cartoons depicting other leaders as well.

Cartoons offer an interesting mode of academic engagement in classrooms. But thanks to the intolerance demonstrated by some of India’s politicians, students may be deprived of interesting ways of learning about their own past.

So what is the government’s next move? Ban all cartoons from being published in the press? Or ban all newspapers and magazines?

With the rupee down 22 percent in the last 10 months and a 6 percent drop in stock markets so far in May (as of Friday’s close), is it time for the government to seriously rethink its strategy ahead of the 2014 general elections?

From Mark Mobius, who said the Indian government has been making many big policy mistakes, to Lakshmi Mittal, who told The Times of India on Friday that decision-making is too slow and India needs to move the way the rest of the world does — there is no dearth of criticism.

As the global economic environment continues to be weak, what is the government doing to address these issues? Right now, India badly needs reforms, foreign inflows, and most importantly, clarity and stability.

It took Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee nearly two months to clarify his controversial set of General Anti-Avoidance Rule (GAAR) proposals, and also defer it by a year, after an investor backlash.

One wonders what took the government so long to issue clarifications, which could have helped revive much-needed inflows and improve sentiment. And even when it did, it failed to pacify investors.

As a Scotiabank executive summed it up – India changes rules too quickly. They don’t realise it hurts them in debt capital markets and hurts flows on a long-term basis.

And all this happened when global issues continued to weigh, with the worsening situation in the euro zone, especially Greece, sparking outflows.

India saw net portfolio outflows of $540 million in March and April, compared with $13 billion in inflows in January-February. The investment climate looks subdued, with net outflows of around $50 million recorded in the last week.

In all this, the common man won’t be spared. The RBI’s measures have so far failed to arrest the rupee’s decline, which is likely to hurt everyone as it makes everything from cars to television sets expensive. This just adds to the pain of managing already high inflation.

On Thursday, the cabinet deferred three bills, including the keenly watched insurance bill which proposed raising the FDI limit from 26 percent to 49 percent. The bills which push for increasing FDI in retail and aviation sectors are already on the backburner.

Mukherjee had told Reuters in March that key reforms will be approved in 2012, but said last week that delays are inevitable in a coalition-run government which needs to value the different views of allies.

The fact that India is putting more and more things on the backburner will not help boost sentiment. The government, sooner or later, will need to take a serious look at curbing subsidies and its import bill, and tackle supply side bottlenecks and push reforms. It appears it is more a matter of when, than if.

With the rupee down 22 percent in the last 10 months and a 6 percent drop in stock markets so far in May (as of Friday’s close), is it time for the government to seriously rethink its strategy ahead of the 2014 general elections?

From Mark Mobius, who said the Indian government has been making many big policy mistakes, to Lakshmi Mittal, who told The Times of India on Friday that decision-making is too slow and India needs to move the way the rest of the world does — there is no dearth of criticism.

As the global economic environment continues to be weak, what is the government doing to address these issues? Right now, India badly needs reforms, foreign inflows, and most importantly, clarity and stability.

It took Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee nearly two months to clarify his controversial set of General Anti-Avoidance Rule (GAAR) proposals, and also defer it by a year, after an investor backlash.

One wonders what took the government so long to issue clarifications, which could have helped revive much-needed inflows and improve sentiment. And even when it did, it failed to pacify investors.

As a Scotiabank executive summed it up – India changes rules too quickly. They don’t realise it hurts them in debt capital markets and hurts flows on a long-term basis.

And all this happened when global issues continued to weigh, with the worsening situation in the euro zone, especially Greece, sparking outflows.

India saw net portfolio outflows of $540 million in March and April, compared with $13 billion in inflows in January-February. The investment climate looks subdued, with net outflows of around $50 million recorded in the last week.

In all this, the common man won’t be spared. The RBI’s measures have so far failed to arrest the rupee’s decline, which is likely to hurt everyone as it makes everything from cars to television sets expensive. This just adds to the pain of managing already high inflation.

On Thursday, the cabinet deferred three bills, including the keenly watched insurance bill which proposed raising the FDI limit from 26 percent to 49 percent. The bills which push for increasing FDI in retail and aviation sectors are already on the backburner.

Mukherjee had told Reuters in March that key reforms will be approved in 2012, but said last week that delays are inevitable in a coalition-run government which needs to value the different views of allies.

The fact that India is putting more and more things on the backburner will not help boost sentiment. The government, sooner or later, will need to take a serious look at curbing subsidies and its import bill, and tackle supply side bottlenecks and push reforms. It appears it is more a matter of when, than if.

Trade is the new/old panacea of India-Pakistan relations, moving ahead rapidly after Islamabad said last year it was ready to match India’s offer of Most Favoured Nation (MFN) trading status. The Economist called it “a profound and welcome shift” that could eventually open up for India trade through Pakistan to Afghanistan and the markets of Central Asia and beyond. As trade increases, so the argument goes, India and Pakistan will build the trust needed to tackle their territorial disputes, while economic inter-dependence will reduce the risk of conflict.

The problem with this scenario is a dangerous mismatch in expectations between India and Pakistan. India sees improved trade ties as a useful end in themselves; Pakistan, in contrast, is looking for rapid progress on territorial disputes. That could be an academic argument, were it not for the fact that this mismatch echoes problems that have bedevilled relations since 1947. Even since their first war over Jammu and Kashmir left India with the more important parts of the former kingdom – the heartland Kashmir valley and control of the rivers on which Pakistan depends – India has been a status quo power. Pakistan, in contrast, has been fighting to change that status quo, nurturing Islamist militants to fight asymmetric warfare against its bigger neighbour, with lethal consequences for the region, and increasingly, for itself. With little or no progress on territorial disputes, the approach of improving trade ties while leaving the rest to a better day risks falling foul of the same cycle of violence.

So far, an agreement on Kashmir appears as elusive as ever. There has been no progress in resolving a boundary dispute in Sir Creek, which lies in the marshlands between Gujarat in India and Sind in Pakistan. And of most immediate importance, there is no change in attitudes to the Siachen region, a wasteland of mountains and glaciers high in the Karakoram beyond Kashmir, which since 1984 has been turned by  India and Pakistan into the world’s highest battlefield.  After losing 139 soldiers and their civilian staff last month to an avalanche, the Pakistan Army has appealed for talks on the demilitarisation of Siachen. India has rebuffed that call, officially reiterating its stand that Pakistan must first authenticate India’s higher and more advantageous positions before any military withdrawal. The Indian media narrative has taken an even harder line, with some suggesting that the Indian positions be permanently agreed as the boundary between Indian and Pakistani territory – thereby not only reinforcing the status quo, but also negating any possibility of a territorial compromise further down the road.

From an Indian point of view, focusing on trade first appears to make sense. With Pakistan’s economy struggling and relations chilling with the United States, it too stands to gain from better trade. As Sadanand Dhume at the American Enterprise Institute argued in a discussion on Twitter, Pakistan should stop seeing better trade ties as a concession to India.

“Pakistan hurts itself by seeing trade as a concession to India. Pakistan’s economy needs the boost much more than India’s,” he argued. “Robust economic ties will create constituencies for peace on both sides. In short, both sides would benefit from more trade even if neither budged an inch on Siachen, Sir Creek or Kashmir.”

With its growing political and economic clout, India sees little reason to make early territorial concessions to Pakistan, especially with the wounds of the 2008 Mumbai attacks still raw, and the man it believes masterminded those attacks, Lashkar-e-Taiba founder Hafez Saeed, continuing to play an active public role. And increasingly, it has the United States on its side – Secretary of State Hillary Clinton used a visit to India this month to renew pressure on Pakistan to tackle Islamist militants – a choice of location that irked many Pakistanis. In short, according to the Indian view, Pakistan should take what is on offer for its own benefit, and what is on offer right now is better trade.

Or as former Indian intelligence chief Vikram Sood said on Twitter, trade would be beneficial to Pakistan and should not be seen as a concession to India. But, he added, greater trade need not lead to a political settlement. “It is a mistake or a forlorn hope that trade will lead to political solutions.”

“Why must India make territorial concessions?” asked former Indian foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal in an op-ed this month. “The notion that India as the bigger and stronger country has to be generous with Pakistan is egregious. If this principle should dictate the conduct of international relations then China should be generous towards India on issues that divide us – which it decidedly is not – and the U.S., as the world’s most powerful country, should be making concessions to virtually all others – which it decidedly does not do.”

The United States does in fact make concessions to Pakistan (though it is certainly not seen that way inside Pakistan.) It is still willing to provide aid to Pakistan even while suspecting its army of encouraging militants to attack its soldiers in Afghanistan. It has not even begun to unleash the economic, diplomatic and military firepower it could bring to bear if it decided to get really tough with Pakistan. It does so not out of generosity, but to secure its own interests and because it believes, rightly or wrongly, that Pakistan would become too much of a danger to itself and others if Washington were to disengage altogether.

The risks of the Indian position is that by hewing too closely to the status quo it deprives itself of diplomatic flexibility, while also undermining the constituency for peace inside Pakistan - which includes the civilian government - and strengthening hardliners. Pakistan’s security establishment has always tended to respond with fury to any perceived Indian indifference to settling territorial disputes. A very rough analogy would be to compare Kashmir to a child in a custody dispute where India has custody and says there is nothing to discuss, while Pakistan reacts with spluttering rage.

India need not, and will not, settle its territorial disputes with Pakistan quickly. But it can show good faith by demonstrating a willingness to address them in the future, rather than simply waiting it out in the hope they will eventually be forgotten. It could, for example, offer to send joint teams of Indian and Pakistani scientists to Siachen (a ceasefire has been in place since November 2003) to investigate the impact of global warming and the war on the huge glaciers there - thereby acknowledging that both countries have a shared stake in the region.

A little warning flag went up this month when Pakistan cancelled talks on Sir Creek originally scheduled for May 14-16. It gave no official explanation, but Indian media interpreted it as a means of putting pressure on India to make progress first in talks on Siachen due on June 11 and 12 before Sir Creek is discussed. It was only a small warning flag, hardly noticed in the rising tide of optimism over trade, a bit like that little red flag on the beach that tells you not to go in the water.

But it was a warning nonetheless. Territorial disputes matter to Pakistan – as the smaller country, and increasingly worried about its water supplies from rivers that come through Indian-held territory, they matter more to Pakistan than to India (though India too can be fiercely territorial). As a Pakistani general once told me in Rawalpindi, “India can withdraw a thousand miles and still be India. We can’t afford to withdraw an inch.” Watch for more of those warning flags going up if we continue down the same track of increasing trade ties with no accompanying progress on territorial disputes.

The Express told a straight story, but when the Web link (or “URL”) circulated on Twitter, someone made a change that made it look like the Express was expressing an opinion.

Here is the link: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/acha-hua-margaya-saala/947200/

Look at the second half of it:

“Acha hua mar gaya saala.”

More or less: “It’s good that the jerk died.”

That’s a comment best reserved for the opinion pages, and it’s not a particularly sophisticated or kind comment. My initial questions when I saw this on Thursday were: is there any way that someone outside the Express could have changed the URL? Or is this something that happened inside the newsroom?

My colleague Saqib Ahmed answered: yes, you can change a link without breaking it. Indian Express URLs, he said, contain three parts: the main website, the first part of the individual ID of a story, and then the second part. Look at this example:

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/ +  obama-supports-gay-marriage/+  947899/

You can change that to:

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/ +  romney-supports-gay-marriage/+  947899/

And it STILL will work. You can’t rewrite an article, but you can rewrite the link. A likely reason for this is “search engine optimization,” goosing URLs so they can include names and terms that people often search for, ensuring that the result shows up at the top of Web searches on Google, Yahoo and other search sites.

This still doesn’t tell us, however, who wrote the link text. It could have been anyone who speaks English and Hindi … just a few hundred million suspects.

Steve Myers from the Poynter Institute, a journalism school in Florida, says that this is not entirely new. Look at this article from April 2011. Some news websites, including Reuters, don’t make their links this way, which makes them harder to mess around with. But many do, and as the gunfight story illustrates, the results can be embarrassing to say the least.

(Thanks to my colleagues and friends Saqib Ahmed, Shakeel Sobhan and Divya Sharma in Bangalore, who helped me understand how this works. Thanks to Nivedita Bhattacharjee in our Chicago bureau for making me do the Hindi translation on my own rather than just giving it to me.)

(This blog post appeared in a rougher form on my personal blog at http://bobbymacreports.tumblr.com )

In the face of climate change, is it time to re-examine the way we do development in Asia?

For years, many developing countries have believed it can be only one or the other – economic growth or reducing carbon emissions.

But a new report by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) says it’s possible for countries in the Asia-Pacific region to do both.

“High human development usually means high emissions, but there are ways to do things differently,” says Anuradha Rajivan, lead author of the report.

Everyone agrees that Asia-Pacific – which accounts for one-third of the world’s greenhouse gases and is home to two-thirds of the world’s poor – needs more economic growth if it is to lift millions of its people out of poverty.

But Asia must also do its part to address climate change, not only by adapting and preparing for extreme weather events, but also by reducing its carbon footprint, experts say.

“The world’s common future will be hugely affected by the choices that are made in Asia and the Pacific on a low-carbon growth path,” says Ajay Chhibber, UNDP’s director for Asia and the Pacific.

“The goal is clear, reduce poverty, increase prosperity, but leave a smaller carbon footprint.”

GREENER OPTIONS AVAILABLE

This isn’t as difficult or as costly as it sounds, say the report’s authors.

Asian countries are much less locked into the old, carbon-intensive models of production and consumption used by the West, which took the approach of “grow first, clean later” – helping it achieve the high levels of development it enjoys today.

Greater knowledge and improved technology mean Asian countries need not take the same path as they try to boost manufacturing, produce more crops and generate energy to fuel industry and improve their citizens’ quality of life .

They can adopt “greener, more resilient, lower-emission options”, says the report. These will be more sustainable and provide employment and income opportunities for the poor, it adds.

The report comes ahead of the Rio+20 Earth Summit in Brazil next month, which aims to hammer out sustainable development goals across seven core themes – including food security, water and energy – for countries to adopt.

GOVERNMENT STRATEGIES

There’s a whole gamut of strategies Asian governments can start looking at – if they aren’t already – to make their development more sustainable and less carbon-intensive.

They can encourage industry to adopt green technologies through regulations and fiscal incentives, without undermining their competitiveness.

They can also shift tax burdens towards fossil fuel use and waste generation, and redirect subsidies away from polluting fuels.

Countries should also look at promoting greener agriculture, the report says. Techniques such as reducing methane in rice production by more efficient water use will help, for example.

Carbon sequestration using crop waste is another example of greener farming. Cambodia, India and the Philippines are using crop residues such as rice husks which are burned with almost no oxygen, producing “biochar” which is then buried to store carbon and improve productivity.

Globally, cities occupy only two percent of land yet contribute more than two-thirds of greenhouse gas emissions.

Given that half of the world’s 20 or so megacities are in Asia, building greener cities is imperative.

Authorities can promote climate-friendly energy use, more efficient transport, greener buildings and better waste management, according to the report.

“There may be some uncomfortable trade-offs, but the way forward is clear – it lies in sustaining human development for the future we want,” it says.

“Through better institutions, more accurate knowledge and changed attitudes, Asia-Pacific societies can find smarter strategies for adapting to a warmer world.”

PHOTO CREDIT: A man takes a break from loading coal onto trucks near the town of Dangcheng, in Quyang county, located 250 km (155 miles) southwest of Beijing, Dec. 7, 2011. REUTERS/David Gray

The impact of the show Satyamev Jayate (Truth Alone Prevails) was evident when its host, actor Aamir Khan, convinced the chief minister of Rajasthan, Ashok Gehlot, to help bring justice to women who have had to forcibly abort their foetuses.

Media reports say the Maharashtra state administration has also sought Khan’s help to prevent female foeticide.

Khan, one of the most popular Bollywood actors, has associated himself with various social causes in the past. But critics question his activism and say it is more to do with promoting an upcoming film.

Khan is perhaps the most outspoken Bollywood actor when it comes to social issues. But, when state governments like Rajasthan and Maharashtra wake up to issues as old as the pre-independence era merely through a TV show, it speaks volumes about the disconnect the administration has with its own people.

So how far will Aamir Khan’s activism go? And should actors endorse more social issues for more awareness? Share your views.

The altercation became talk of the town because it involved GTA’s two extraordinary personalities – Toronto Mayor Rob Ford and Daniel Dale, a senior and highly awarded journalist of Toronto Star, one of the oldest newspapers.

Conflicting versions

After the incident, Ford accused Toronto Star of harassment and alleged that its reporter stood on pair of cinder blocks located little beyond fence in the backyard of his house, peeping in and snapping photos of his house. The mayor said, he had no idea as to why the reporter was taking snap of his backyard when the piece of land journalist was investigating was on the other side of his home.

Reporter Dale denied saying that Mayor’s statement wasn’t fully correct or honest. He had done nothing wrong and was on public land and didn’t come within 10 feet of the mayor’s property. He never peered over his fence, never stood on cinder blocks, did not go on the Mayor’s property, and he never spied on the Ford family as apprehended by him.

How that happened?

As per media reports, that evening Mayor’s neighbor informed him “there is somebody in your backyard, taking pictures,” At this Mayor Ford, instead of calling police for help, stormed out himself to see who was there and to catch hold of the intruder, who violated privacy of his family.

An agitated Ford soon caught Toronto Star reporter Dale standing little away from fence of his backyard. As per Mayor, he didn’t realize it was a Star reporter until the man turned around. Asking Dale what he was doing there, told him to hand over his smart phone and recorder and get out. The Star reporter became unnerved, as per Ford, dropped his phone and recorder down on his feet and ran away saying, “You can have it, just don’t hit me. At that I didn’t hit him, I didn’t touch him. Ford said.”

Differing with Ford’s version, the Star reporter said the mayor rushed at him with his “fist cocked,” while he was standing on public property to find out the tract of land Mayor Ford and his wife Renata wanted to buy from TRCA (Toronto and Region Conservation Authority) to erect a fence for the “security of their children.”

Dale said, he also wanted to find out if the land in question was really vacant, as the Mayor had described in a letter, or if it had mature trees on it, as the TRCA asserted. In later case, public intervention was obvious to arrive at a final decision about sale of land to Ford family. That besides, the reporter wanted to inspect the existing fence, since the Mayor wanted to install an enhanced one to keep his children safer. As per Dale, he was just taking snaps of “the trees and the fencing.”

But Dale became scary after he found Mayor Ford approaching him with intention to hit and became panicky after Ford cornered him ‘like a rat’ preventing him to escape. Portraying his state of mind at that time, Dale later said, “I’m not at all ashamed to say that I was scared after Mayor had cornered me and I saw him suddenly running at me with his fist in punching position, refusing to listen to my pleading explanation.

Under such frightening situation after throwing both of his gadgets down there, Dale ran away as fast as his feet carried him to his car parking lot wherefrom he immediately drove away.

Where both went wrong

Both Ford and Dale, hovering around there at dusky hours, seem to have erred while performing their respective roles — the Mayor ensuring security of his family and Dale looking around the piece of public land that the former wanted to purchase.

As said, after receiving neighbor’s information, Rob Ford opted to confront the intruder himself than to call 911.

His behavior has raised a million dollar question — should fellow Torontonians emulate their Mayor’s paradigm while dealing with similar situations in their lives? The answer was big NO.

Even his brother, councilor Doug Ford, said, the mayor, should not have personally confronted Dale. It’s far safer, in these situations, simply to call police and have them look into the matter. After all, that’s what they’re paid to do. True, Mayor Ford’s handling of the matter was faulty and no sane person would ever support that, even his brother didn’t endorse his conduct.

The next important question that came to mind was about Dale’s covert movements made around the backyard of Mayor’s residence during dusk. Was Dale’s action justified under code of ‘Freedom of Press’ or not, was the question needed little closer scrutiny.

May be in his anxiety to present story more vividly, Dale thought of locating the piece of public land that Mayor wanted to purchase and take its snaps along. But Toronto Star reporter seemingly failed to do his home work properly because a map provided by the TRCA shows that the tract of land Ford wanted to acquire was besides his house and not behind where Dale was caught standing by the Mayor.
Later, Dale confirmed that he wasn’t entirely clear which parcel of land the Mayor wanted to buy and that was the part of the reason he was in the area of latter’s home.

In the end

Present incident, likely to be forgotten soon, has raised some fundamental questions ranging from Mayor’s security to freedom of press in Toronto.

In this connection, it is relevant to refer to the views of Councilor Doug Ford, Mayor Rob Ford’s brother, who emphatically maintained that his younger brother should have security. “Rob thinks he’s just the average guy and says, ‘I don’t need security.’
Had Ford approved of security arrangements around his premises, that as Mayor of Toronto he needed, the present episode would never occur the way it did. And Dale would have visited premises as journalist with permission to put substance into his story of Mayor Ford’s conflict of interest — the fundamental issue that has been eclipsed by the unfortunate happening.

Next day (that happened to be World Press Freedom Day) addressing media, Ford declared that he would not speak to members of the press if Dale was present. Reacting sharply against the posture Mayor took against reporter Dale, the GTA media termed ban on him as an attempt to muzzle the press that is apparently unprecedented in Toronto politics.

It is, however, hoped that the heat and dust this intimidating incidence raised settle down soon and all engaged in vital public assignments perform their jobs well and avoid such embarrassing interactions that raised many eyebrows in Toronto and elsewhere.

Back when this immigration consultant and his staff in Mumbai convinced me and thousands of others to pack up and move, I recall the very compelling reasoning that was put forward.

Would-be immigrants to Canada were shown a scrapbook containing newspaper clippings from around India that ominously warned of everything ranging from civil war, to genocide of minorities and not to mention the bleak economic outlook for the country. Another scrapbook was all about the sunny forecast and projected growth in Canada. It was painted as this land of milk and honey, it was, for those immigration consultants, many of them were unscrupulous enough to persuade perfectly happy families to sell everything and move to Canada only to lose not just their savings, but hope as well.

Personal experience

Thousands of immigrants would not have made the decision to move to Canada had they been presented with an accurate picture regarding employment prospects. If I knew then what I knew in the months following my arrival in Canada back in 2000, I would’ve come to Canada… as a tourist like so many of my friends, who stayed back and travel to a different world destination every year.

I was particularly struck by my immigration consultant, who despaired over the fact he’d have to lay off half his staff. No doubt, he will let them read all about Canada’s thriving economy and the lucrative jobs out there. He and his staff were masters of spin.
Immigrants, like myself, were reassured that there were good jobs for the taking once I survived the initial period of struggle and a series of bad jobs. The struggle was a sort of rite of passage for every successful immigrant. Although I didn’t personally struggle financially and found employment in an unrelated field, I paid a professional price by having to sacrifice a career that required my core competence.

A dilemma!

I met highly educated immigrants, who worked at warehouses and factories only so they could put food on the table and pay the rent. Going back was not an option after they sold off everything and uprooted themselves. They had to give themselves more time as the good immigration consultant advised. And that in itself was a trap, because the longer you languish at the dead end jobs, your spirit dies, you stagnate professionally and then going back is definitely not an option because you’ve lost that competitive edge and seniority back home. So you stick it out for the ‘sake of the kids’.

The tragedy is that most immigrants, like holocaust survivors, don’t like to talk about the price they paid for coming to Canada. Sure, most end up finding some kind of employment. Disappointment hardens many dreams and hungry immigrants are an employer’s delight!

Exploitation abound

I have a relative, who runs a business that employs 25 people in Scarborough, all of them recent immigrants. He avoids employing native-born Canadians because they will insist on proper wages, benefits, day’s off and other rights. His hires are grateful merely to have jobs. Many immigrants have been forced to take jobs paying minimum wages in order to get that harrowing ‘Canadian experience’.

A number of employers have and continue to take advantage of vulnerable newcomers, who lack the choices. One newcomer said he would rather work for a white employer for minimum wage than be exploited, underpaid and overworked by employers from his own community. And of course, the established ‘friends’ from the newcomers’ hometown have no sympathy for his or her struggles having gone through worse in earlier times.

These were some of the thoughts that came to mind as I read and heard of the plight of immigration lawyers and consultants. Newcomer settlement agencies that thrived in an era when helpless immigrants, ill-equipped to survive in this economy, begged assistance are also nervous with the changes. Naturally, there is much money to be made in human misery.

Thriving on clients’ haplessness!

But those in the immigration business have nothing to worry about. They pedaled hope to immigrants, made piles of cash, bought second homes in Canada which they rented out to their clients, thus milking them twice. One immigration consultant I know bought property in India from one of his clients in Canada in a distress sale and arranged for the funds to reach him. Thanks to booming property prices in India, the consultant is sitting on a piece of land worth crores, while his client in Canada works two jobs to make ends meet.
There will always be a need for honest immigration consultants and lawyers — the emphasis though is on HONEST.

More next week!