#dnaEdit: Jottings of the week...

Educating ministers
HRD minister Smriti Irani is in a spot of bother over a Delhi court order declaring as “maintainable”, a complaint alleging that she made false representations of her educational qualifications in three separate election affidavits filed in 2004, 2011 and 2014. The case is at present at an early stage; the complainant, Ahmer Khan, will have to furnish pre-summoning evidence, following which the court will take a call on summoning Irani as an accused. But the BJP, however, has been left red-faced with the Aam Aadmi Party demanding that Irani be treated on parity with its former law minister Jitender Tomar who was arrested and subjected to intense custodial interrogation over his fake degrees. Like Irani, doubts were first cast over Tomar’s degrees after he mentioned them in his election affidavit. The BJP has also defended Maharashtra education minister Vinod Tawde who appears to be holding a “degree” not recognised by any university. The unmissable irony in these developments is that Irani and Tawde are in charge of education and their college “degrees” are under the scanner. Propriety demands that they relinquish charge of the ministries. If not, PM Narendra Modi and CM Devendra Fadnavis must demand their resignations.

Climate without borders
The heat wave in Pakistan’s Sindh province claiming at least 1,000 lives follows a similar phenomenon witnessed in India in May in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. To make matters worse, Sindh is also witnessing crippling water scarcity and recurrent power cuts. The Pakistan government has claimed that water and power are the responsibility of the provincial government. But this has not cut ice with the people, who, finding no redressal under martial rule, have come to equate democracy with the rule of the country’s moneyed elite. During the recent heat wave in India, official instructions to labourers to stay indoors in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, was met with contempt by the poor who cannot afford to sacrifice their daily wages. Like these two Indian states, Sindh too, was witness to a rapid build-up of surface temperatures hitting construction workers hard. Governments tend to view heat waves as recurring annual events. South Asia is staring at the prospect of disastrous climate change. But to recognise this shared threat, its constituent countries must shed their obsession with borders.

Drive against AIDS suffers
Faced with acute funds crunch and virtually penniless, Maharashtra State AIDS Control Society is planning to drastically scale down its operations. It has already asked NGOs and community-based organisations to majorly retrench educators and field workers, who play a crucial in the battle against HIV/AIDS. It also means that the fate of over 182 projects catering to nearly three lakh high-risk population is uncertain. Even basic elements like syringes, contraceptives, medicines and testing kits are in short supply, casting light on the lopsided priorities of the state government. At a time when people have woken up to the dire need of fighting this deadly disease, and the stigma associated with it is gradually receding, such criminal indifference on the part of the authorities is completely unacceptable. In 2011, the then Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan had expressed concern about the wide prevalence of AIDS in the state, which is home to some 18% of the country’s affected population. The worst affected would be the children — 25,000 according to a 2011 estimate — who will be denied treatment due to funds crunch. The current CM Devendra Fadnavis cannot wash his hands off in a matter as grave as AIDS/HIV.