Shame Shame Bangalore

An accomplished and celebrated actor, Rajkumar, recently passed away of cardiac arrest. A beloved of the Kannada masses, thousands showed up to see a glimpse of his dead body for the last time. And then something shameful happened.

The fans of Rajkumar couldn't take the grief anymore and decided to take it out on state and private property, basically, in every property that wasn't their own. They torched buses, cars and bikes, they smashed windows of shops and offices, and the entire city had to shut down shop, less out of respect and more out of fear of the rampaging apes.

The Karnataka state government has always been known to a particularly pusillanimous government, in other words, government without the tiniest of balls and slightest of guts. There is already a state mourning period, and office goers and school children will get an extra holiday. I am sure Dr. Rajkumar would have wanted the people of Bangalore to totally mess up their daily lives to remember him.....not. While buildings were burnt and vehicles torched, the police, rather than going on the offensive mode, played on a back foot. Tear gases apart, they were actually dragged out and beaten by a crowd just looking for punching bags to vent their grief. Such people need to be hunted down, and maybe given a few 'cardiac arrests' of their own.

What kind of a reactionary society do we live in, where nobody seems to have any control over their emotions, where nobody seems to care jack about the lives of others. Why are we still like that? Rule of law has been eradicated completely by the ruling class to further their own importance, and the rest of us have to live in a world of crime and insecurity with nobody but ourselves for support. Big words, but the point I am trying to make is simple. And I say this because the Govt. of Karnataka is sympathetic to such rioters, just like they are to every mob (read votes) that hurts the city and hurts the country.

Bangalore isn't going to win admirers by hurting its business interests. You let your lawless mobs run riot on hapless business parks and you will ensure their speedy departure from your God-forsaken city. So once again Bangalore, shame on you. Your chosen leaders already can't do jack shit about your infra, and they definitely can't do nothing about your law and order. And f*** you, you jahils.

Mob fury in B'lore, 1 killed in firing

One person was killed in police firing as frenzied fans of Kannada thespian Rajkumar went berserk and unleashed violence ahead of the actor's funeral today, as thousands paid homage to the matinee idol.

The emotionally-charged fans of the actor went on a rampage resorting to stone pelting and targeting vehicles in and around Kanteerava Stadium where the mortal remains of Rajkumar were kept in a coffin for public view, police said.

Sorrow gave way to fury among groups of Rajkumar's fans who also torched at least two state-owned buses, damaged scores of vehicles and attacked the police with stones in and around the stadium.

Near the Kanteerava studios also, where the funeral would take place, police repeatedly burst several rounds of teargas shells and resorted to lathicharge as the situation seemed out of control with hundreds of fans seeking to gain entry and pelting stones at police.

Earlier, the nearly 10-km long funeral procession taken out from the Kanteerava stadium was marred by violence. There were several incidents of stone-throwing, damaging scores of vehicles, including some of police, along the way.

At least two private vehicles and a shamiana were set on fire outside the Kanteerava Studio premises. At least four policemen had been injured in mob violence earlier today.
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B'lore at standstill, IT-BPO firms move to backups

Close to 95% of the 3 lakh plus IT-BPO workforce in the city were forced to log into a long weekend from Thursday morning as rampaging mobs took to the streets after the death of Dr Rajkumar on Wednesday afternoon. Only skeleton staff were pressed into services at a handful of BPO firms to keep the systems and processes running for their customers across the globe. A majority of the BPO work was diverted to other cities in India.

Almost the entire IT staff of software vendors stayed back home as many of them have the liberty to co-ordinate work from home unlike the staff of BPOs who often cannot work out of home because of data security reasons or unavailability of bandwidth.There were some reports of a few organisations like Microsoft and IBM on the Embassy Golf Links adjacent to the Airport Road, which were forced to closed down on Wednesday at around 5 pm.

Officials at these companies said they were in close touch with the police who made adequate arrangement for staff, especially women, to reach home safely on Wednesday night.

A spokesperson for Infosys said that they have a business continuity plan, which was activated and no major effect was felt on their operations owing to the backup created by the contingency plan.Wipro declared a holiday on Friday.

Their BPO operations don't have a presence in the city.MphasiS also has declared a holiday, and employees have opted to work on Saturday to make up for Thursday. They, too, closed down early on Wednesday. Pureplay BPO firms like 24/7Customer too had to down shutters on Thursday, making do with a few staff, and had to divert work to other centres in India.

Be a Congress Minister and have fun!

Being a cabinet minister in India is fun. If you aren't the moralist and honest type, there is no limit to all the sweet things you can do. For one, you don't have to worry about any integrity at all, basically take some orders from your party bosses and just do your thing. These could include any number of populistic policies, any number of segregating rules and in general, plans to destroy all the great institutions of your country.

people like Arjun Singh, Shivraj Patil, Ambika Soni etc, all these people are known for nothing. Professionally, I dont know how accomplished they are in their professional life, but what i do know is they have been amply rewarded for being the trusted servants of the Gandhi household. Patil's the home minister, and the weakest ever there was. The naxals are blasting their way into central India, but he still prefers to call them our 'misguided youth'. The north-east is being run over by Bangladeshi's, but since they only add to the Congress vote bank, the more the merrier.

But this post is mainly about the other Singh in the Cabinet, Arjun Singh, the HRD Minister. Last week I talked about the quota system that he has hoped to re-implement in the country. The repercussions of his acts are many, and the one driving force behind these actions is certainly vote banks, the one factor that countless other politicians would sell their families to win.

Arjun Singh is facing a lot of flak for his efforts to push the bill, but heres my question: when we know that everything in the party happens upon the wishes of Sonia Gandhi, why arent no fingers being raised on her. Oh wait, I think its because we still havn't gotten over our awe and reverence for her supreme political sacrifice. Similarly, the Prime Minister is quiet on the issue as well. Although there have been reports of dissent coming from the National Education Council chaired by him, it seems certain that Congress hopes to play this Ace to see them through the upcoming assembly elections.

The country is still debating the unfolding drama but the general mood seems to be that Arjun Singh and his Congress party is full of shit. The only reason they need this is to secure the underprivelaged vote. The SC is on the case, so is the Election Commission. Academics and business leaders are critical, so lets bring this populist blunder down, and begin benefitting the target people in the right way.

EC puts Arjun in spot; Gen OBC can't fall under OBC quota: SC

The Election Commission today sought an explanation from Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh over his proposal for quotas to OBCs in Central educational institutions, IIMs and IITs when the poll process was on in five states.

Taking suo motu action, the Commission said the announcement made by Singh, as reported in the electronic and print media, "amounts to new concessions to certain sections of electorate" in the poll-bound states of Assam, TN, West Bengal, Kerala and Pondicherry, and is prima facie violation of the model code of conduct, EC sources said.

Meanwhile, Reaffirming its judgement on Mandal Commission case, the SC has held that a candidate from the Other Backward Class, selected in the general category, cannot be considered appointed under the OBC quota.

The UPSC had recommended names of 739 candidates for appointment to the posts of IAS, IFS and IPS in the year 1999. The names of two of the candidates were withheld and remaining 737 were to be appointed on one to one basis for different categories of candidates. Of these, 174 posts were reserved for the OBC candidates.

From general category, 36 OBC candidates qualified and were appointed on merit. Only 138 OBC candidates got jobs from the OBC quota and remaining 36 OBC candidates were not selected.

The court, however, noted in context with 36 vacancies reserved for OBC, that it ''was at a loss as to what had happened to those remaining services/posts after allocation of services to all the candidates in terms of their preferences. We say no more.'' Vacancies still exist even after allocation of posts to all the candidates.
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Now, beneficiaries say no to quota

The government says its proposal to increase reservations for the economically backward classes from 22 to 49.5 per cent will benefit the students. But the beneficiaries of the quota system themselves have reservations about the move.

"The cutoff in the IIT entrance exam for quota students is generally 10 while for the general category students it is around 30. If the quota is increased to 50 per cent, this cutoff mark will come down further and thus adversely affect the quality of education," says a quota student from IIT-Powai, Anil Kumar.

The students feel that it's not just about 'making it' to the premier institutes. Once the students are admitted into the institute, the toughest part begins - dealing with competition.
"Quota students are not able to do very well once they get into the IIT. They are not educated properly. They have not been coached well and so they have an inferiority complex," says another quota student, Rajiv Kumar.
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OBC quota: HRD, PMO fight turf war

The controversial proposal to increase reservation for backward classes in higher education institutes has now sparked off a tussle within the Union Government.

There seems to be a turf war between the HRD ministry and the Prime Minister's Office over the proposal. While the Cabinet Secretary's office has returned the draft bill, HRD Minister Arjun Singh is reported to have remained defiant.

The Election Commission is learnt to be unhappy with the HRD minister's reply to its show-cause notice, in which Singh denied the charge that he had prima facie violated the model of conduct for elections by announcing plans for reservation in elite educational institutions.
The Election Commission is now examining the follow-up steps in this regard.

Arjun Singh himself is believed to have written to the states asking them to speed up the process so that it may be ready for implementation for the 2006-7 academic session in state-level institutions.
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The Con'gress plan for our educational institutions

Last decade, VP Singh was the Prime Minister of India for a short time, I dont even remember what alliance he belonged to at the time, but there was a commission, whose report came out around that time,called the Mandal Commission. I was too young to know what it was then, except i remember it created a lot of heat all around the country and our school was forcefully shut down for a whole month, I think sometime in October.

So now that shits rearing its head again, and the despicable, traitorous Congress bent on destroying the integrity and professionalism of our higher institutes of learning, I am going to look behind me and see what that Mandal was about.

The committee was formed in 1980, headed by MP B.P. Mandal, who came out with a report on the upliftment of the lower castes of the Indian society, recommending exclusive posts for them in the Government and reserved seats in major educational institutions.

More than a decade after it came out, VP Singh decided to implement it, and it led to his Government's fall. The criticism is simple, and I agree with this notion too that you can't try to create equality by providing privelages to sections of the society based on their caste. This leads to an unhealthy societal relations and creates resentment among those who are not a part of the deal.

There is no doubt that the underprivelaged castes, as unfortunate as it is that they are still sometimes discriminated against, need our support and respect, this is not the right way to do it. Rather, I have said it, and so have many others, that rather than providing reservations, which will greatly hurt the quality of students coming in, why not provide scholarships and cheap loans to underprivelaged children, and help them get into coaching institutes of repute, thus providing an equal platform for them to compete with the rest to give the JEE.

But that can't happen, and the Gandhi Butler, and oldhead, Arjun Singh doesnt seem to know what he is doing. Actually, he does know what he is doing. As far as I remember, ever since the Con'gress has been in power, the HRD ministry has been indulging in some nice vote bank policies. These bastards talked of providing reservation in the private sector. As ridiculous as the idea is, they wanted to implement it. Dancing to a filmi song in Davos is all fine and dandy but when you act like anti-national bastards at home, it really doesnt help in getting foreign business in. Arjun Singh wants to bring in almost 50% reservations in the IITs/IIMs, and pretty much the same in universities like University of Delhi. The new deal is that there is an additional 27% reservation for the OBC's, or other backward castes, which'll take the reservation to close to 50%. Rest in Peace, Indian progress.

Lets see what this article from Outlook magazine as to say....

Populism as Policy

Take the latest controversy over the "new policy" that would take the overall reservation in the central government-funded higher education institutions -- including IITs and IIMs -- from the current 22.5 (for SC and ST students) to 49.5 per cent in all, with an extra 27 per cent for the OBCs.

Sri Arjun Singh, since he makes such a production of playing by the letter of the law, first kicked it off by publicly stating that his ministry would announce the decision after the completion of the assembly polls in five states. So why bring it up now? The party nominally considered the principal opposition seemed to provide an answer: "What the Congress-led government is doing is a mere political stunt, a fraud on the poor people by selectively leaking the proposal when there are elections in five states".

And all this at a time when the IITs and IIMs are already suffering and suffocating under an HRD ministry that ironically somehow always seems to be headed by those who could do with some human resource development themselves.

what is most bizarre is that the current controversy should have erupted when such eminently sane and articulate advice as that from the member-convenor of the high-profile National Knowledge Commission (NKC), which reports directly to the prime minister, is available.

It is heartening therefore to read about the exchange of mails among the NKC members, beginning with the e-mail from Pratap Bhanu Mehta which, terming the Arjun Singh pronouncement as a "distressing development" exhorted all members to protest the proposals: "These is no point having the Commission if we don't take a stand on this issue."

Mehta then listed three main points to protest to the PM: "First, the new proposals are incompatible with promoting excellence and autonomy. Second, the access to education should be distributed widely across social groups, but 49 pc reserved seats is a step in the wrong direction. At the moment, measures are in place for SCs/STs and these should not be supplemented by reservation for OBCs. This is an opportunity to think afresh on this issue and not rush into introducing measures that we know are irreversible."
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Right now the only thing holding these traitors back is the assembly polls in 5 states. As for the Opposition, well, they have truly lost their minds. Instead of arguing against such government policies, he would rather take a 'rath yatra'. Apparently some things never change, and the lack of farsight in our politicians is one of them.

OBC Quota: Its Mandal revisited

Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh may claim that it's just a proposal, but UPA Government's attempts to increase reservations from the present 22.5 per cent to 49.5 per cent in prestigious educational institutes like Indian Institutes of Technology, Indian Institutes of Management and other institutes of higher education, is brewing up a storm.

In what seems like a repeat of the infamous Mandal politics of 1990s, students have reacted with shock and anger at Arjun Singh's proposals.

Political hobnobbing, too, has begun and Opposition parties are going all out to draw mileage out of what they say is a violation of the Election Commission's code of conduct.

But even as the worried students mobilise support, political battlelines are clearly drawn.

However, for once, the Samajwadi Party finds itself on the same side as the Congress.

"I have been involved in the movement from the 80s. And we should have the reservations," SP supremo and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Mulayam Singh Yadav, said.

The BJP, obviously sensing immediate political gain from the move, has said that if the proposal comes into effect, it will be in violation of the Election Commission's code of conduct.

But with UP elections due next year, the politics of reservation is clearly aimed at OBC vote bank appeasement.

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Reservation will divide India: Tata

"Bad" was what Tata had to say on the Centre's move to introduce reservation in the Indian Institutes of Management and the Indian Institutes of Technology, and other like institutes.

He also opposed a call for job reservation in the private sector.

Tata, who headed the Investment Commission set up by the United Progressive Alliance regime, said: "Though I do not want to comment on it (reservation), it is bad. In some way, it will tend to divide the country into different groups."

Congress general secretary Margaret Alva on Saturday admitted that reservation in central educational institutions would affect bright students but the measure was taken to give "equal" opportunity to students from backward classes.

"It is true that a section of bright students will be affected because the number of general seats will come down.
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With die caste, campuses on the boil

Mandal’s back to haunt the nation. The prospect of an additional 27% OBC quota (over and above the 22.5% for SC/ST) looming large, IITs have gone into war mode and universities and colleges across the country are ready to follow suit.

An urgent students’ meeting was held at IIT Delhi on Friday to discuss the course of action. A protest march by the alumni of all seven IITs sometime next week is already on the cards.

Backroom activity is in full swing. Indignation over the notion of birth taking precedence over merit is hard to digest in the country’s premier technical institutes.

"Students who do not get into an IIT on merit find it hard to keep up. Getting in is just step one, the real struggle begins only after the first class."

The view is supported by Prof G Padmanabhan, former director of the Indian Institute of Science. "The government should lay emphasis on adequate coaching so that students can compete better. Reservation may not be conducive for requirements of merit."

Aggressive SMS campaigns, animated debates during tea-breaks and plans to file PILs after exams abound at the Delhi University campus.

In Kolkata, while most students said they were not in favour of more reservations for this might make "life difficult for talented, deserving youngsters", colleges and universities took a cautious approach.

Officials of Presidency College — the city’s most prestigious institution — urged the government to take a look at the present scenario before implementing the recommendations.

The pitch of opposition, however, is not as strong as it was in former PM V P Singh’s time. There are supporters too.
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Look, i know there are underprivelaged people in the country, and the way the governments have tried to uplift them over the years have not helped one bit. With every policy that any government ever brings out to protect and uplift the underprivelaged, their sole concern has always been to ensure that group's votes are secured.

A politician is a politician is a devious hyena. They stand for nobody but themselves, and I think we should start seeing through their farce and actually question some of their policies.

What'd Lalu do with the Railways?

The noises started sometime last year, when for the first time in decades, nay, for the first time ever, people started to talk of the Indian Railways actually making profits. This behemoth of an organization, the mother of all government institutions, the much derided, but still much used, the Grand old Indian Railways was on a turnaround!

And the person who brought it about? Why, its Lalu Prasad Yadav. I still don't know when he went to Lalu from Laloo, but thats not the point of the story. Everyone's hated Lalu, and for good reason. The man brought an entire state to ruins. He and his posse of relatives and party workers plundered the land of the Buddha and turned it into a destitute, a playground for criminals and laughed at by the rest of the country.

Hmm, come to think of it, very similar to the Railways: dirty, late, unsafe, yet the only option available. Filthy railway stations and old smelly bogeys are the images that come up when one mentions Indian Railways.

So when he lost Bihar after 15 years, it was a big deal. I was only left wondering why the hell did it take those people 15 years to vote him and his wifey out. Anyways, Lalu now owns the Railways ministry at the Centre, entirely in thanks to his group of RJD MP's who form the part of the UPA, an illustrious line-up of substandard politicians. Let me add that the good ones actually take a lot of slack away from the non-performers.

The ministers who did good are the PM himself, Chidambaram, Praful Patel, Mr. Maran, and now Lalu Prasad Yadav. So how HAS the railways been fairing? Well, while most of it is still grimy and dirty, it seems it is doing pretty good financially. Remember one time when he locked the doors to the Rail Bhawan and sent all the late comers back home? Everyone thought it to be one of Lalu's arrows from his eccentricity quiver, but maybe he did start to get things done.

Unlike other rail ministers, who flogged freight to compensate for passenger fare, Lalu has actually lowered them, offered incentives, like lower rates at off-peak hours, introduced facilities, and has actually stated that he aims to change the face of our railway stations! There was news recently that he travelled somewhere once, I think to Bihar, and he said it was a nightmare. Dirty toilets seemed to upset him in particular. Well good for you Lalu ji, sharing the pains of millions of other passengers.

Let me try to pull together some news to see whats going on. Oh, before I forget, I felt that this year's rail budget created a lot more buzz in the economic and media circles, for the simple fact that it was good (!).

Driving a turnaround

It’s difficult to even imagine, leave alone believe, that the Indian Railways, a Rs 54,700 crore giant, lumbering since 1996, has turned around over the past two years. What turnaround? The stations suck, the trains stink and let’s not even begin to talk about service. Yes, it’s difficult to visualise this turnaround. But if that’s difficult, let me increase the degree of difficulty — the turnaround has been, and is being, driven by Lalu Prasad, the man accused of driving Bihar aground, single-handedly.

It has been a journey in which the first station was freight earnings — which is what we have largely captured in this edition of Express Survey. The next stop will focus on turning passenger losses into earnings and make a rail journey a pleasant experience. The last station of this turnaround trip is approaching fast—allowing private players to run container traffic and the Rs 65,000 crore freight corridor that will come up over the next six or seven years. It is then that this turnaround will climax.

The turnaround has happened without any increase in fares or freight rates. It is based on a simple fact that expenses of the Railways are indifferent to its throughput (the number of passengers or the million tonnes of freight it carries): the same resources carrying more throughput, resulting in greater efficiency and sky-high profits. Volumes, not margins, are fuelling it. A monopoly behaving like an entrepreneur; a price-setter not raising prices.
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Maverick engineers Indian Railways turnaround

Indian Railways now has $2.48 billion in fund balances, from $78 million in 2001, a stunning reversal after being long seen as a terminal debt trap. With new budgetary announcements of passenger-friendly and growth-aimed projects, the once-doddering behemoth is now dancing sprightly to attract big chunks of the $150 billion in foreign investment that financial experts expect India to attract in the next five years.

Railway container services will be privatized from April 1, a move welcomed by industrial associations. Licenses to operate container trains would have 20-year validity with the option of a 10-year extension.

With petroleum prices increasing, Yadav did not increase fares but slashed them, reducing air-conditioned upper-class categories from 18% to 10 %, a move also forced by budget airlines eating into the railways' higher-end customer base.

Yadav said in his budget speech in February that he would encourage public partnerships and public-private partnership schemes. They include opening food plazas and bank machines at the important stations across the 63,000-plus-kilometer rail route, and a new timetable.

Other major infrastructure projects await investors, such as the Dedicated Rail Freight Corridor (including a proposal to construct a $4.962 billion "dedicated multi-modal high-axle-load freight corridor", with computerized control), along the western and eastern networks.

The year 2006, Indian Railways has declared, will be the year of "Passenger Service with a Smile", a sentiment its money managers might heartily endorse as they laugh their way to the bank, instead of being laughed at.
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Giving an IT boost to Indian Railways

Railways to set up budget hotels

Indian railways get double decker train

SC Rulings regarding hostile witnesses

Yesterday, the Supreme Court passed two important judgements that may have a strong bearing in the way many murder cases are solved in the country.

It is no fact that for every high profile murder case involving a powerful person or his/her son/daughter/nephew/niece, there are forces that pressure the witness into keeping mum or retracting their statements to the police. We all know about Jessica Lall's case because the media chose to latch onto this one case from the millions such cases that are languishing in the dusty corners of Indian courts.

Despite all the call for credible witness protection plans, the Government is still moving with the classic government pace, very slowly and very unsurely. Some sort of witness protection plan was to have been passed in this current parliament session, but instead the politicians chose to hold giant orgies with each other and with the suspension of the entire session, the witness protection plan was left hanging. In case you dont know what orgy I am talking about, its that 'office of profit' circus show, which ended with one grand "sacrifice" on the part of the Godmother of Congress. However, there are indications that the Parliament may reconvene, and hopefully this bill will be passed without delay.

Coming back to the topic at hand, the Supreme Court had made two important points in its ruling: one, the trial courts can base their conviction on the initial statement of the witnesses and can discard the subsequent statements after they turn hostile. Secondly, the courts do have the power to prosecute hostile witnesses as well.

This ruling, as opposed to popular belief, is not in response to the Jessica Lall case, but in fact, to a 17 year old murder case from Ujjain where two brothers saw a man and his accomplice assault another person, and were the prime witnesses for the case. The duo however, retracted their earlier statement saying the police made them say it under duress, and in fact later appeared as witnesses for the accused! While reversing the MP High Court's order acquitting the accused, the SC termed the lower court's decision as 'perverse'.

I am glad that the courts have finally attempted to not be taken for granted anymore. Hostile witnesses become what they are because there are forces in the society that have a greater power of hurting the witness than of the state protecting him/her. When the state is unable to protect those who are vital in the delivery of justice, the courts must take it upon themselves to create an environment where such subversion of justice is resisted.

Deal firmly with witnesses turning hostile: Supreme Court

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has asked the Sessions and High Courts to deal firmly with witnesses turning hostile or giving false evidence in criminal cases. In such cases, the courts should not acquit the accused.

A Bench of Justice H.K. Sema and Justice A.R. Lakshmanan on Friday said: "Once a witness is examined as a prosecution witness, he cannot be allowed to perjure himself by resiling from the testimony given in court on oath by filing an affidavit stating that whatever he had deposed before the court was not true and was done so at the instance of the police."

Writing the judgment, Justice Sema said that when such frivolous and vexatious petitions were filed, the Judge would not be powerless. He should use his discretionary powers and refuse relief on the ground that it was made for the purpose of vexation or delay or for defeating the ends of justice.

The judgment, in a murder case, assumes significance in the context of the accused in the Jessica Lall and other high profile and sensitive cases being acquitted because the witnesses turned hostile or gave false evidence.

Two witnesses were initially examined as prosecution witnesses in the murder case. The trial court awarded life sentence to the accused. In an appeal before the Madhya High Court after about five years, the witnesses deposed in favour of the accused, saying their earlier evidence was given due to coercion, threat and police tutoring. The High Court acquitted the accused only on the ground that the witnesses had turned hostile and given false evidence.
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Jessica effect: Hostile witness plays safe

While retraction by prosecution witnesses led to the acquittal of all the high-profile accused in the Jessica murder case, the apex court on Friday refused to extend similar benefit to the accused in a murder case in Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh, because the prosecution witnesses turned hostile.

In the process, the Supreme Court made two things clear. First, trial courts can base conviction on the initial statement of a witness while discarding the diametrically opposite evidence given by him after turning hostile. And second, courts are not powerless to order prosecution of such a hostile witness who resiles from his statement given on oath.

Coming after a verdict by another Delhi court similar to the Jessica case, the apex court’s ruling in the Ujjain case shows that pending the enactment of a witness protection Act, the judiciary is already interpreting the existing law to deny advantages to the accused because of witnesses turning hostile.