READING

Good books

are like

blessings from God.

They change us

without any rebuke or slap.

Reading is a silent encounter of two remote minds.

If you want real success in life,

you need to read exhaustively to understand the roots

of your problems

and finding solutions to them

permanently and perfectly.

This cannot be done by asking others

including your creator.

Believe it:

God helps those who help themselves.

If you want change in others's behaviour, give them books and other reading material or written note. Don't waste your energy in talking, arguring, scolding or repremanding.

POLICING THE PEOPLE

Problem-oriented approach is central to police functioning, says Sankar Sen*
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A Tribune Special
Policing, despite many existing stereotypes, is an extraordinarily complex endeavour. By the very nature of the function, the police are an anomaly in a free society. In a democratic society, as H. Goldstrein puts it, “ they are invested with a great deal of authority under a system of governance in which the authority is granted, sharply curtailed. “
Nevertheless a successful functioning of the police in a democratic society depends upon its ability to maintain a certain degree of order without which a free society cannot function. The strength of a democratic society, the quality of life enjoyed by the citizens, are determined in a large measure by the ability of the police to discharge their duties efficiently.
Police organizations have some of their own peculiar characteristics. Police Officers, unlike Army units, are spread out in the field and not subject to direct supervision. The individual officers possess awesome authority to deprive people of liberty, and even of their lives, and this authority of necessity is delegated to individuals to be exercised in most instances without proper review and control.
In western democratic countries, particularly in the U.S, the prevalent professional model of policing places a high value on police being apolitical. It advocates tight discipline, efficient use of personnel and technology as well as high standards of training.
However, the professional model came under enormous pressure in the later 1960s and early 70s with increase in crime, civil rights protest movements and complaints of minority groups against the police.
Researches on police and police operations conducted during the 1970s revealingly showed limitations of practices like random patrol, rapid response, follow-up criminal investigations that constituted the bedrocks of policing for many years.
The lessons drawn from these studies challenged the value of standard operating procedures of the police and revealed that police resources have been invested in a limited number of practices based on some simplistic concepts of the police role.
The researchers also provided some other important insights. These are police deal with a range of problems many of which are not criminal in nature; arrest and prosecution alone, traditional functions of the police, do not resolve the problems; the police can use a variety of methods to redress the recurrent problems and design different solutions to solve them. Police use a wide range of methods, formal and informal, in getting the job done. Law enforcement is only one of the methods among the many.
It was Goldsteing who first coined the term, “ problem-oriented policing” in 1979. He felt that professional policing only takes a very narrow view of policing and “perpetuated the conflict between the concern for operating efficiently and concern for substance”. He views problem-oriented as comprehensive plan for improving policing in which high priority is attached to addressing substantive problems that face the police. In professional model of policing, the major emphasis is on handling incidents effectively. The efficiency of policing is judged by how speedily they solve the problem assigned to them and thus police officers often deal with the superficial manifestations of deeper problems.

The first step in problem-oriented policing is to move beyond just handling the incidents and take a more in-depth interest by understanding and appraising the forces and factors giving rise to them. The problem thus becomes the unit of police work and serves as a reminder that the job of policing is much more than dealing with crime and criminal law.
The police must proactively try to solve the problems rather than react to the consequences of the problem.
A crucial feature of policing is that it seeks solutions tailored to specific problems. Arrest and law enforcement are not abandoned, but an effort is made in each situation to analyse the problem carefully to find out which of the alternative responses are best suited for effectively dealing with the problem.
The notion of choosing the tool that best suits the problem instead of grabbing the most familiar and convenient tool in the toolbox lies close to the heart of the problem solving.
Goldstein advocated that police must recognize their role in society as broader than just enforcing the criminal law. At the same time , he argued that the police mandate may not be unlimited and all –encompassing.
According to him, the police become involved in every government and quasi-government activities, they risk eroding the balance of power in local and national government. Like the army, there is a sound rationale for keeping police out of certain forms of decision- making. There is an obvious danger that the police agencies may over-extend their resources and try to achieve objectives about which they have little or no expertise.
Problem oriented approach requires careful search for alternatives by the police. This is a legitimate enterprise central to police functioning. The police should be dissuaded from applying a single response haphazardly to a wide range of different types of problems.
However, search for alternatives should be preceded by a careful analysis of the new problems of concern. Striking out in a new direction without thinking through the problem can be counter-productive and has to be discouraged.
In problem solving, the police play the role of helping the community rather than depending on police power and criminal justice system control. The police have also tried to make use of specific forms of social control inherent in existing relationships like parents over children rather than depending on police power for control. Indeed, there are enormous potentials for making greater use of the other social control mechanism.
There are critical differences between community policing and problem-oriented policing. They have different goals and methods. It reduced Goldstein’s intensive analysis of community-wide problems to a more general street problem solving which tends to focus on problem smaller in scope.

Officers analyse these and tend to draw on personal experience for responses. It is more analytical than knee-jerk law enforcement.
Lay members of the community assume that the police have much more authority and capacity than they actually possess. Explaining the constraints and limitations of the police to the community will enable the community to realize the difficulties and limitations under which the police operate. This will ease the pressure on the police and police suggestions and proposals will evoke better response from the community.
In a democratic society in which complex social problems will always place a heavy demand on the police, it is necessary to strive constantly, and not periodically for a form of policing that is not only effective but also humane and civil, that not only protects individual rights and other values basic to a democracy but strengthens our commitment to them.
Of late, initiatives have been taken up to expand problem-oriented policing programmes. The work sponsored by Britain’s Home Office has special significance. It introduces the situational approach- a concept that emphasizes changing the environment(rather than changing the people) and the need to concentrate on specific types of offences or locales.
However, problem-oriented policing requires incorporating these efforts to the mainstream of policing and making them an integral part of the police management and operations.
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· The writer, a former IPS officer, is Senior Fellow, Institute of Social Sciences, New Delhi

· ( Source:The Sunday Tribune, 11th January, 2009)

APOLOGY

DEAR READER,
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HUMAN RIGHTS

A tool of social revolution.
By
Justice Pritam Pal*

THE rights of man have been the concern of all civilizations from time immemorial. The people of earlier age were familiar with human rights. The concept of human rights is not new for us too.
Indian history is warranted by the fact that human rights jurisprudence has always progressed smoothly though a historical path and never lost its link with the past. The philosophers of Vedic Age opine that human rights, earlier called as “natural rights”, are inherent in our nature without which we cannot live as human beings.
A lot needs to be done for a just, peaceful and humane society where human rights of every individual are respected. Unfortunately, human rights abuses continue unabated. These include
· Extra judicial killings
· Fake encounters
· Custodial deaths in Police Lock-ups
· Excessive use of force by security forces in disturbed areas
· Arbitrary arrests and continued detention,
· Prolonged detention while undergoing trial
· Occasional limits on freedom of press and freedom of movement
· Harassment and arrest of human rights monitors
· Extensive societal violence against women
· Female bondage
· Forced prostitution and female infanticide and
· Discrimination against those with disabilities.
Human rights and fundamental freedoms allow us to develop fully and use our human qualities, our intelligence, our talents and our conscience and to satisfy our spiritual and other needs. They are based on mankind’s increasing demand for a life in which the inherent dignity and worth of each human being will receive respect and protection.
It is time to analyse the scope and sphere of human rights.. What are the actual limits of human rights, the extent of practice, what to ignore and what should be given due importance? A lot is being done in this field today.
Yet there is the flip side too. The term is being misused by many which is unfair and immoral. An adequate system of checks and balances might help solve this problem.
India has seen a lot of development in human rights. The Constituent Assembly tried to make the Constitution which would enable Indians to “wiper every tear from every eye” and free the country from ignorance, hunger, poverty, squalor, exploitation and discrimination. The Supreme Court has left no stone unturned to keep us the standards and promises made in the Constitution.
The latest judicial trend reveals that Indian courts are enthusiastic in using the law as a tool of social revolution. The process of social change through law involves not only the legislature but law courts also interact and react through interpretative device.
Former Chief Justice, P.N.Bhagwati highlighted the new swing and significance of the judicial process. The theatre of the law is fast changing and the problems of the poor are coming to the forefront. The court has to innovate new methods and devise new strategies for bringing justice to those who are denied their basic human rights and to whom, freedom and liberty has no meaning.
A study of notable cases of the Supreme Court proves that Indian judiciary has echoed strong sentiments in favour of the rights of the downtrodden, poor, women and children. The scope of Article 21 of the Constitution has been widened in the light of changing values of Indian society. The new interpretation of Article 21 has brought about a vital change in human rights jurisprudence.
Though a lot has been done, we find the picture as a mix of many successes with occasion failure due to strange conditions in the country. India is proud of its successful national movement against the foreign rule, but it is shameful that we are facing internal failures in creating just social order beyond the burden of caste and gender deprivation despite 60 years of Independence.
The United Nations’ first Secretary General, U.Thant once said, “The establishment of human rights provides the foundations upon which rests the political structure of human freedom; the achievement of human freedom generates the will as well as the capacity for economic and social progress; the attainment of economic and social progress provides the basic for true peace.” He rightly saw in the promotion and protection of human rights in the “ascending spiral “, as he called it, of human freedom and progress, prosperity and peace.
We still have to go a long way to inculcate a human rights culture to get rid of the unjust society which denies the masses their right to be human. We must not let the concept of human rights get corrupted just because some of us want to take undue advantage of the same.
We should have caring and sensitive society, a society which does not pay lip service only to human rights but sees to it that they are available to all classes, castes and sections in the society, fulfilling the ethose of our Indian Vedic culture denoting Sarve Bhavantu Sukhkhina (Happiness for all).
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· The writer is Judge, Punjab and Haryana High Court , Chandigarh (India)
(Source: Article published in the Sunday Tribune of 11th January, 2009)

DIET

A new breakthrough secret is all you now need in order to forever shed countless pounds, stay healthy, and add many years to your life!
A lady doctor from Arizona has blown the lid off the best-kept secret in weight loss ever discovered -- and this has the whole diet food and drug industries turned upside down and in nothing less than a torrential uproar.
Her name is Dr Suzanne Gudakunst, and she's marching to the beat of a different drum.
And no, nothing about her "secret" is difficult -- nor does it require that you do something completely out of the ordinary or anything unnatural.
Instead, the Arizonian boasts proudly "...this is something that I caught onto just before 2002 when there was so much research and exploration going around concerning the human colon and digestive system working in harmony with nutritional absorption, and I started doing independent studies just to test things at first ... but which I later expanded on after seeing some fantastic results."
This same woman medical practitioner went on to accurately determine a definitive correlation between harmful plague and parasitic infestations of the human bowel tract, and people suffering chronic obesity -- and who despite intense diet and exercise appeared to be unable to lose any weight whatsoever.
Over the course of six years the Arizona doctor developed a number of natural treatments for the removal of these same harmful, even life-threatening plaques and rapidly reproducing digestive parasites -- and when applied to even worse-case patients suffering extreme obesity (98% of which were in immediate danger of dying) she saw a 100% effectiveness and success rate.
She then borrowed from her research on the severely obese, and applied the same strategies on milder cases of overweight persons -- only to find the same effectiveness and quality results as described above (although the individual weight loss per subject wasn't nearly as much as those obese patients 100 lbs to 200 lbs or more overweight).
So powerful is her secret that she's able to reverse diabetes, rid illness altogether in people suffering from cancer (linked directly to poor diet and overweight factors), as well as an elimination of an entire spectrum of serious and otherwise life-threatening diseases.
Nearly 100% of all her case subjects were told in the alternative by "conventional doctors" that they either had just months or years to live, or they would never live a life anything resembling remotely a "normal" existence -- yet after applying Dr Suzanne's treatments saw a complete contradiction to others doctors' prognoses.
Again, nothing about her secret is unnatural or requires someone to do any major action or modification in their lives.
In fact, her entire treatment is based completely on built-into-nature 'protection agents' scattered throughout the world in the form of select herbs, extracts, and organic constituents, and which can be found in a variety of plants -- but when combined in specific combinations and carefully chosen amounts make for a solution to what is perhaps the world's worst ever plague: OBESITY (and the illnesses and diseases resulting from it -- or at least severely aggravated or exacerbated by it).
Now to everyone else's great gain, whether suffering from just a few extra pounds and inches, to those extremely fat and overweight, this brave, bold lady doctor is releasing to the general public her secret for forever destroying the tight unrelenting closed-fist of obesity's stronghold over the now more than 40% of Americans labeled obese, and others worldwide.
But she's not promising any of us for how long.
Some experts and sociologists suggest that in the bigger scheme of things, the world will never tolerate a discovery of such magnitude, any more than it would be realistic to expect a car that runs on water (even if very real) to ever become commercially available to the general public for day-to-day use.
One well-respected and famous diet & wellness author wrote years ago that if anyone ever "truly unlocked the keys to permanent fat loss, they may actually suffer the same fate as JFK."
It is currently available at:
=> http://best2deals.fatsecret.hop.clickbank.net
...so you may want to head on over there now and get it and before someone or "something" gets it forever yanked out of ever getting in YOUR hand at least.
It's in a very easily readable format and is quickly and readily understood and mastered by anyone with even a 4th grade reading level.
While you're there, why not scroll down and review for yourself the huge successes others are now having with this incredible breakthrough in rapid, massive weight loss and extremely improved and enhanced health, now made freely available to the rest of us?