In Pakistan, army rule legalized by Supreme Court

The dismissal by Pakistan’s Supreme Court of petitions, challenging Pervez Musharraf from standing for re-election as President, even as he holds the post of Army chief, at one stroke removed any hope of a legal end to army rule in Pakistan. The 6-3 decision by Supreme Court judges on Friday in fact legalizes army rule in Pakistan.

On October 6, it appears that Pervez Musharraf will stand for President while also holding the post of chief of Pakistan’s army. In effect a victory for Musharraf will be a victory for the army and its continued dominance of Pakistani politics. Government lawyers, who first said that the President would resign from the army post if re-elected, later prevaricated.

The government, the Supreme Court, and the army were in fact rolled into one when under the The Oath of Judges Order 2000 the judges in Pakistan took a fresh oath of office swearing allegiance to military rule. Judges had to swear that they would not make decisions against the military rule.

The struggle for democracy will now move more dramatically to the streets. If earlier, opponents of Musharraf, political parties opposed to him, and the lawyers had hoped that the Supreme Court would rule in their favor, they will now have to take their protests to the street.

Musharraf is seeking re-election from a Parliament whose term ends in October this year, and his party has a majority in this parliament that was elected in 2002 at the peak of the General’s power. Once Musharraf is re-elected, and the army consolidate their rule, they will likely call for a general election, and they and their minions will decide who can contest and who will not. That may include former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, but will very definitely exclude another former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif.

It is only the people of Pakistan who can prevent this bizarre sequence of events from unfolding. Close allies like the US have long ago thrown their weight behind Musharraf, and are evidently proud that their boy has made it past the petitions in the Supreme Court.

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Minister, leave the kids alone !

The decision by the government in the state of Karnataka in India to ban mobile phones, for school kids under 16, is quite thoughtless. As Bangalore, the capital city of Karnataka and a technology hub, gets increasingly unsafe, as traffic gets unpredictable, and traffic jams are frequent, it is both reassuring and necessary for kids to be able to communicate with their parents.

A parent I know in Bangalore was quite distressed that in future she would not be able to communicate with her kid while in school. She told me she has found a work-around. "If they will not let my kid buy a phone, then maybe I will take an additional connection in my name, and give it to the kid," she said.

If the government is concerned about mobile phone users disturbing the class, and quite rightly so, this is a matter for the discipline committees in each school to handle. Blanket bans don't help, and only reflect the schools' inability to handle discipline.

Getting kids to reduce their use of mobile phones to only emergency calls, to avoid the suspected harmful effects of mobile phones, would be a matter to be handled jointly by parents, teachers, and kids.

We are seeing a similar dispute over the use of mobile phones in schools in New York, according to a report in the New York Times

The people of Bangalore would at this point be better served if the police enforce existing rules such as banning drivers from using mobile phones.

The government should also consider clamping down on pedestrians who negotiate the roads while distractedly talking into their mobile phones. The need to be "connected" seems to be so strong among people in Bangalore, that often folks plug on their headsets and start talking just as they are leaving home. Often car drivers honk at jay walking pedestrian, but the pedestrian cannot hear over the mobile conversation, or is too engrossed in the conversation.