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17-23 July, 2012
small world
Desperation
And Now the Police Need to Invoke RTI
Haima Deshpande

MUMBAI ~ Fed up with delays in getting test results from the state-run Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) in Kalina, Santa Cruz, anxious policemen have taken to filing applications under the Right To Information Act (RTI) asking for the status of their pending cases. Since a number of high priority cases have broken the queue and are being dealt with on an urgent basis, a host of other cases are being kept on the backburner. As a result, there are delays in getting evidence against the accused. The results are crucial in the filing of chargesheets, which has to be done within 90 days of the accused being arrested.

According to officials connected with the FSL, the facility has been flooded with RTI applications from policemen. “We have been receiving almost one RTI request every two days. They want to know reasons for the delay,” the official says, requesting anonymity. Policemen usually file RTI applications in the name of their relations in order to avoid being identified.

The facility is also unable to process the cases as it is crippled by a lack of manpower. For example, cases like the Colaba rapes, where three girls between two and three years were found abused and murdered, and the Karan Kakkar murder case, are on the high priority list. But the FSL has been unable to process the results due to a lack of chemicals, officials say.

In the Colaba case, the Cuffe Parade and Colaba police stations had made five arrests and sent almost 1,000 DNA samples to the FSL, seeking early results. But they got the results of only 225 samples. The FSL wrote to both police stations saying they were unable to process the remaining samples for various reasons. “This case is crucial and we need the results quickly as it will help nail the accused,” says a policeman from the Colaba police station. “The safety of children in the area is at risk. Our investigations are getting hampered [due to these delays].”

The FSL refused to answer queries about alleged delays in forensic reports, directing this correspondent to speak to the home ministry.

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Take Two
Overreaction to ‘Underachiever’
The Time magazine cover story on Manmohan Singh was a long drag with little new to report
Lhendup G Bhutia

It was amusing to see the reactions following the publication of Time magazine’s cover story on Manmohan Singh (‘The Underachiever’, 16 July). The PMO (Prime Minister’s Office) quickly claimed that all was well and dismissed the article as “rubbish” and “not based on fact”. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) held a press conference saying that Singh should resign. P Chidambaram then reminded the opposition that it hasn’t got much glory either, the same weekly having carried a similar unflattering report on Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2002 (‘Asleep At The Wheel’). News anchors devoted hours of prime time to the article, and the online social media was abuzz with those defending the prestige of their leader after having come under attack from a foreign publication.

But what is it that sent all of them into paroxysms? Not only did the article have nothing new to say, it only made it to the cover of Time’s Asian edition. Its EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) and South Pacific editions carried German Chancellor Angela Merkel on their covers, while the US edition ran a story about the US Supreme Court’s ruling on one Affordable Care Act.

And it is unlikely that many in India even read the article. According to the magazine’s website, its Asian edition has a circulation of 264,033, of which some 46,890 copies sell in India. The magazine is priced at Rs 110 and is available only in select stores. For those in India who read the article, it is improbable that they would have learned anything new that would have left them aghast at the Prime Minister leading their country. The article is simply a recounting of Singh’s life and career—from his roots in the Pakistani village of Gah to his rise to become India’s Prime Minister. Even its point about the inability of Singh to deal with India’s currently bleak economy is something various publications have been saying for months. One could in fact argue that the ‘Underachiever’ tag is much kinder than many other epithets like ‘Complete failure’ that have been doing the rounds in Indian publications.

Just because a foreign magazine, distinguished as it might be, does a story on Indian leadership doesn’t mean we should give it so much importance.

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GOING CHEAP
The 3D Conversion Game
Alok Singh

Whether you like it or not, 3D content is all set to become all pervasive. Until recently, the cost of converting 2D movies to 3D was prohibitive: around Rs 20 lakh per minute of footage, says Sushil Kumar Agrawal, chairman and managing director of Ultra Ray 3D, a Mumbai based company. It is now offering this conversion service at 10 to 15 per cent of that amount. Also, while earlier a 150 minute movie used to take about nine months to convert, Agrawal says he can now do it in two months. But even at this rate, the market is rather limited because converting a full movie to 3D would cost about Rs 45 crore. So Agrawal is looking at another market: he is thinking small. Converting a 5 minute ad film would cost around Rs 15 lakh, which seems much more doable. The company recently struck its first success with an ad in 3D that was featured alongside The Amazing Spider-Man in India. Agrawal says he has achieved this cost advantage because of a proprietary software (which he owns legitimately) and labour cost advantages in India. Obviously, these are early days for this market: prices are only going to fall further and 3D is here to stay.

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17-23 July, 2012