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Monday,
June 18, 2001, Chandigarh, India  
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VSNL’s
tangled lines Bush charm does not
work
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Second
coming of Tony Blair
The
musical world of Gungun
Test
leaders for mental stability
CDS:
will bureaucrats have last laugh?
‘NZCC
financial mess was set right’
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VSNL’s tangled lines MARKET
capitalisation is purely notional. It represents the sum total of the worth of all shares of a company on any given day based on the stock market price. The stock market is volatile, if not capricious, and hence the worth swings wildly decoupling the real value from the market-determined one. The steep drop in the share price does not normally matter since it is all on paper, or the paper in which the shares are printed. But occasionally it assumes alarming importance as in the case of VSNL, the government-owned overseas telephone monopoly. It is up for disinvestment and the government, hungry for extra revenue to bridge the widening deficit, was hoping to rake in at least Rs 10,000 crore by selling 25 per cent of the VSNL shares. That was a dream and it was big money. That lies in ruins now with the stock market dealing a body blow. At one time the VSNL share was traded at Rs 3100 and that was as late as February last. Today the price has plummeted to Rs 860, erasing an eye-popping Rs 20,000 crore or thereabouts from market capitalisation. At the present price the government cannot hope to get more than Rs 2500 crore for 25 per cent of ownership. What led to the skid in values? A rumour, actually a piece of information leaked by a highly placed political source, that VSNL monopoly would end far ahead of the original 2004 deadline. It was this monopoly factor that kept the share price high since it also kept the earnings high. Once it became known that this vital prop is being knocked out, the share price plunged. Now the talk is that as early as August this year, VSNL may face competition from private sector operators. Incidentally, the government committed itself to retain the monopoly till 2004 when it allowed VSNL to raise funds through American depository receipts, a tradeable form of new-fangled shares. The planting of the news accurately reflects a sharp difference of opinion in the top political
hierarchy. Union Communications Minister Ram Vilas Paswan is not enthusiastic about the government losing control over both inland and overseas telephone systems. The process of privatisation of domestic lines had started and picked up momentum long before he became Minister. Many see an ideological angle in the halting attempt at disinvestment. A similar trouble spot is the two airlines the government runs. Minister Sharad Yadav is not a willing convert to the government withdrawing from civil aviation and would love to delay the programme. The recent developments in Air-India and leasing of airport handling facilities, which will trigger a sharp downward plunge in its worth, are related to his opposition to privatisation. The BJP-led government moves in several directions all at once. |
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Bush charm does not work IF George Bush has failed to convert Vladimir Putin to his cause, he should not take it to heart. He has not been any more successful with his European allies either. In fact, the US President’s attempt to sell the idea of the missile defence has been a dismal failure. The few takers that were there (Hungary, Poland, Italy, Spain and Britain) are not exactly the most influential of the lot. The countries that matter, like France and Germany, are as staunchly opposed to the American dream (nightmare will perhaps be more appropriate) than they were before the Bush visit. Europe in general is still smarting under the arrogance of Washington’s rejection of the Kyoto protocol on global warming. In fact, the isolationist and authoritative streak that had been noticeable in the American working of the trans-Atlantic relationship has become more pronounced under the Bush regime. On the other hand, Russia has been bolstered by the support that it has received from China and other members of Shanghai Five (now six). At a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation immediately before the US-Russian summit in the Slovenian Capital Ljubljana, China as well as Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan opposed the anti-missile defence shield in no uncertain terms. Under these circumstances, it would have been futile to expect anything from the Bush-Putin meeting on Saturday. Ironically, the summit came at a time when President Bush had been pushing for the extension of Europe’s political and military alliances right up to the Russian border. While in Europe, he repeatedly stressed that Russia had nothing to fear although the latter was apprehensive about the move, and justifiably so. It is more or less clear that NATO membership is likely to be given to Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. The USA wants Russia to believe that it is part of Europe and does not require a buffer zone of insecure states separating it from the continent. Although Washington overcame Russian objections to Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary joining NATO in 1999, things have changed a lot since then. Several existing members of the organisation are themselves not convinced about the advisability of the move. The end of the cold war has meant that the bond that held these countries together has weakened considerably. However, given the US record of outright rejection of viewpoints that do not converge with those of its own, it is unlikely that it will go back on the controversial programme. NMD may not be a very dependable shield, but it can be depended on to spark off an arms race, that too in the outer space. |
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Second coming of Tony Blair BRITAIN’S general election has proved historic. Not only has Mr Tony Blair become Labour’s first leader in 100 years to win two elections in a row; he is the first to do so with a convincing margin — 10 percentage points over the rival Tories’ 32 per cent. Labour won partly because of a negative vote. Only one out of four electors favoured it. But its victory is a big slap in the face of the Tories who have lost popular appeal as never before. Quite simply, the election marks the end of the “Conservative Revolution” that Mrs Thatcher unleashed 20 years ago. Thatcherism uniquely combined social conservatism, parochial nationalism and devotion to predatory capitalism in a fangs-bared, anti-trade union, property-worshipping form. Mrs Thatcher’s great success lay in stirring up, and then legitimising, deep antipathy among the middle classes towards the idea of equality and welfare. Thatcherism, which celebrated the “Greed Creed”, coincided with the rise of the ultra-conservative US Right. It thus commanded unequalled ideological ferocity. This was central to the imposition of what has been called the Anglo-American model of capitalism on the global economy. Mr Blair’s New Labour didn’t challenge Thatcherism frontally. It doesn’t seek to transform capitalism. Rather, it has tried to manage capitalism “responsibly”, while professing a vague commitment to underprivileged people. New Labour no longer represents a Socialist project. It has explicitly abandoned the goal of common ownership of the means of production — a Labour characteristic for eight decades. Yet, Blairism does mark a break with Thatcherism. It may not aim to restore the “welfare state” that Thatcherism destroyed in the name of “workfare”. But it wants to make Britain Scottish and Welsh legislatures. And the political break with Thatcherism appears strong. New Labour’s social ideology too is liberal, not conservative. However, its economic break with Thatcherism is weak and hesitant. This is fully reflected in Britain’s evolution since 1997 into a more unequal society — despite moderate GDP growth. The Blairite state, following the neither-Left-nor-Right “Third Way”, has withdrawn further from infrastructure investment, especially from Britain’s once-highly regarded public services. Failing schools, acute teacher shortages, postponed operations in National Health Service hospitals, cancelled trains, and the growing disappearance of the reassuring bobby, have become hallmarks of British life. Today, British policy-makers speak longingly of the “French health system, the German education system and the Dutch transportation system” — in all of which spheres Britain had established decisive superiority long ago. In public expenditure, the UK scores poorly in relation not just to countries with evolved social security, such as Sweden, Denmark or Germany, but even to Portugal, Spain and Greece. When Mrs Thatcher took over, net public investment stood at 2.7 per cent of GDP. Under Mr Major, it fell below 2 per cent. In the past four years, it has been consistently below 0.5 per cent. Overall public spending has decreased by 4.4 per cent a year since 1997 — a decline bigger than under Mrs Thatcher. This is despite an overall annual tax growth of 4.8 per cent. British public expenditure on health (5.6 per cent of GDP) is the lowest among all G-7 countries. The number of patients treated in private hospitals has increased from 700,000 in 1997 to over one million. Britain’s expenditure on education is lower not only than in “high achievers” such as Canada or the Nordic countries, but even than the USA, Ireland, Italy or Spain. New Labour’s much-touted macro-economic “stability” was achieved through miserly public spending, which has cheated people of their rights. Despite Britain’s unhappy experience with privatising railways, telecom and water, New Labour has mulishly persisted with privatisation. An example is Abbeylands School in Surrey, the first to be entirely run by a private firm, Nord Anglia, in return for generous bonuses for improved enrolment and exam results. Abbeylands is running a deficit of £160,000. One-third of its 540 seats are unfilled. Britain’s biggest education “partnership”, involving 29 Glasgow schools, is already a scandal. The £ 160 million project has resulted in fewer and smaller classrooms, bizarre laboratory designs, and cutbacks in other facilities. Private business is being awarded subsidised contracts for urban improvement and renewal projects. Even policing is being handed over to private agencies, including in Mr Blair’s own constituency. The experiment with private takeover of prisons has been far from successful. Three jails are being handed back to state services. Private takeover of health services has also run into problems. For instance, in one town (Kidderminster), patients have to travel nearly 30 km to the closest hospital for most ailments. In its latest manifesto, Labour promised to raise public investment, but only in conjunction with private funding, and that too till 2003. The manifesto lacks a serious redistributive agenda. Of the UK’s three major parties, the Liberal Democrats alone have one. Indeed, they have emerged much stronger from the elections, with 18 per cent of the national vote. The Lib-Dems have moved to Labour’s Left, and emerged as its moral Opposition. Mr Blair himself recognises the limitations of Labour’s victory. He admits this is a “mandate to reform” and “an instruction to deliver.” He promises to “invest in the future”. In some ways, New Labour’s ideology, performance and promise show up the limits of the Third Way, the path of least resistance to capitalism adopted by the bulk of Western Europe’s formerly Social Democratic parties. Even after Mr Silvio Berlusconi’s victory in Italy, these broadly Left-leaning parties rule in as many as 10 of the European Union’s 15 member-countries. Today, Europe’s Conservative Right is in a big mess. Britain’s badly battered and demoralised Tories are a good example. Their main counterparts elsewhere, the Christian Democrats, are barely able to cobble together a coalition or agenda. Parties to their right are not a Europewide force. How will the Third Way parties perform in other EU countries where elections are due next year. Denmark, France, Netherlands, Germany and Sweden? Electorally or politically, they are not on the downswing and may yet do well. But they have failed to enthuse the people or the intelligentsia. In particular, they demonstrate little strength or spirit in resisting the more unsavoury aspects of contemporary capitalism: predatory globalisation, jobless growth, deindustrialisation of large areas, the state’s inability to intervene even in emergencies, Today’s capitalism is comprehensively unable to generalise prosperity — even remotely in relation to its own Golden Age (1945-73). Even starker is the Third Way’s failure to conceptualise a grand political project which offers an alternative to the Right, based on participatory democracy, high-quality governance, maximum regional autonomy, and enrichment and extension of human rights — including economic and social rights as well as civic and political rights. In many ways, the values that Third Way parties stand for are somewhat more tolerant, incrementally better — not radical — versions of centrist or “middle ground” liberalism. They don’t form a new paradigm. They fall well short of an alternative conception of a just society based on equality, and on caring and sharing — within a framework that puts popular control of economic activity above private privilege. Globally, the Third Way parties don’t match the strength of conservatism, reflected above all in the US government, now strongly inclined to unilateralism. They remain tied to a West-obsessed, largely Atlanticist worldview which doesn’t effectively resist the emerging US hyperpower. That explains the supine to mild, and hence inadequate, reaction from the EU to aggressive US postures on economic, security and environmental issues. On missile defence, no Third Way government, including Mr Blair’s, has endorsed Mr Bush. But none has provided the kind of leadership needed to dissuade him from that disastrous path. The Third Way has proved timid at the global economic level too. The EU, even more the US, demands a fresh round of WTO negotiations. What the world Socialist project or movement needs today is the Fourth Way — a bold anti-capitalist agenda to reform the world by promoting human-centred, gender-just, ecologically sound, development involving radical social transformation. The Fourth Way must have a broad vision of today’s asymmetrical world, with its tremendous maldistribution of power and vulnerability of its existing global-governance mechanisms. It must regulate global capital, trade and investment in the interests of equity and balanced development. It must limit the use of unilateral military force. Its social agenda must be conceptualised in pluralistic, uncompromisingly democratic terms. More than a decade after the end of the Cold War, and the collapse of the USSR, which was based on undemocratic ultra-centralisation, the time has come to fight for a human future based on decentralised popular democracy. Mr Blair rightly says the election results are an “instruction to deliver”. But unless he moves away from the Third Way, such talk will be all spin and no delivery. |
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The musical world of Gungun RAISING one’s children is a joy. But being with your grand child is sheer bliss. On her second birthday a few months back Gungun’s mama (my daughter) baked a cake, stuck two tiny candles on it and lighted them. Little Gungun’s eyes lit up. It took her some attempts to blow them, and as we broke into the birthday rhyme, she too joined in. Incredible as it may sound, she had already learnt to sing the birthday song in her lisping manner. After that in every birthday party that we took her to she insisted on blowing the candles herself, as she would never accept that it was some other child’s birthday. She had no concept of a year, so we had to enact the charade of her birthday party every weekend when her mama came from Delhi. How Gungun enjoyed being a birthday girl! For her birthday gift her mama brought her a couple of Ladybird books, which have a tape of nursery rhymes. She loved them. “Mera music chalado” she would order me. I would put the cassette in the player and hand the book to her. She soon came to recognise the songs by the illustrations and turned the pages, keeping pace with the tape. She could catch only some fragments from the rhymes, but their characters became flesh and blood denizens of her little world. This I realised when one day I restrained her as she was running recklessly on her unsteady legs in the Rose Garden where we had taken her. “Be careful, darling, you would fall down”, I told her. “Jack fell down” she said immediately, echoing her favourite rhyme on Jack and Jill. It astonished and delighted me as her meaning dawned on me and I added “and broke his crown”, pointing to my head. It really slowed her down. We put her in a nearby play school appropriately called “Little Wonders” which had opened recently. The other day as I was walking her to her school in the morning, our dog Winston too started to follow us. Winston and she are indeed inseparable. He barks and growls at everyone in the most threatening manner, but silently suffers her as she rides and jumps on him at will. I shooed Winston away. Looking back at him she remarked: “Yeh mera little lamb hai.” I looked at her puzzled. Then I remembered the rhyme, “Mary had a little lamb / Its fleece was white as snow.” The lamb had followed Mary to school, and Gungun was alluding to it. I made a mock protest saying the lamb was white and not black like Winston. “Yeh mera kala lamb hai” prompt came her retort. There is a rhyme in her collection about an old woman who goes in the sky in a basket, carrying a broom in her hand (obviously a witch). When a little girl questions her where she was going, the woman answers. “To brush the cobwebs off the sky!” The girl then asks if she could go with her. The woman promises, “Yes, by and by.” It has been sung most beautifully in the cassette and Gungun is fascinated by the illustration in the book showing the woman going beyond the moon. She asks me “Old woman kahan chali gayee?” “Chand se aage, taron ke pass”, I tell her. One day we were sitting on the terrace late in the evening as a half moon shown in the sky. She sat ensconced in her Nani’s lap drinking milk. Suddenly, she asked me where my Nani was? She would not understand anything if I told her my Nani was dead. So I looked up at the sky and said she had gone there. “Old woman ke saath?” Gungun asked remembering the old woman in the rhyme. I nodded. Yes, she had gone with the old woman, beyond the moon, in the stars. Gungun kept on gazing at the stars for a long while possibly deciphering the outlines of the old woman and my Nani in the sky. |
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Test leaders for mental stability WORLD leaders and senior politicians should be tested regularly for signs of madness. Dr James Toole, President of the World Federation of Neurology, believes it is now critical that Presidents and Prime Ministers be scrutinised for signs of mental instability. A crack-up by Tony Blair or George W. Bush would have the most devastating consequences, he will tell the world Neurology Congress in London - yet nothing is done to monitor their psychological wellbeing. “Pilots of airliners are in charge of a few hundred passengers, and we monitor their mental health in the most detailed way,” Toole - of the Wake Forest Medical Center, North Carolina - told The Observer. “By contrast, politicians control the lives of millions, but we let them run around without any form of psychological profiling.
Aggressive drivers prone to stress A study in the journal Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback has revealed that “aggressive drivers” are more prone to stress, including increased muscle tension and blood pressure than their calmer peers. According to researcher Loretta Malta, a doctoral student at the State University of New York at Albany’s Center for Stress and Anxiety Disorders, the study is the first to measure physical changes shown by such drivers in stressful conditions. “It’s the only one that I know of where we actually identify aggressive drivers and see they actually do react more than people who are not aggressive,” Malta said. The study of 14 aggressive and 14 “calm” drivers aged 19-55 years found significant changes in facial muscle tension and blood pressure in the aggressive group, while heart rate and sweat levels were similar to those in the calm group. The physiological tests were conducted individually in a laboratory through exercises such as mental arithmetic, and by listening to personalised driving narratives and fear-inducing scenarios meant to heighten stress levels. “The combined increases in muscle tension and blood pressure observed during all four stressors suggest that the aggressive drivers may have a tendency to respond to emotionally evocative or challenging situations with hostile and/or defensive
behaviours,” Malta said, adding that angry drivers could benefit from relaxation exercises such as deep and controlled breathing.
ANI Men use mobiles more than women A survey conducted by International Communications Research has revealed that men use their mobile phones 35 per cent more than women. According to the survey, men on an average use their cellulars 372 minutes a month compared with 275 minutes for women. It was also found that women use their mobile phones for personal calls more than men, who mainly have business talks. These results contrast sharply with traditional phone usage at home where women use 52.6 per cent more than men at 510 minutes a month. Wireless internet usage by both sexes was more or less the same. About 1.7 per cent of men’s calls and about 1.6 per cent of women’s calls were used to connect to the Net.
ANI
High BP, cholesterol dangers A recent study by researchers at Finland University of Kuopio revealed that a combination of high blood pressure and cholesterol could increase the risk of Alzheimer’s disease, a common form of dementia in old age. Researchers said that a combination of high levels of both cholesterol and blood pressure when a person was middle-aged raised increased possibility of developing Alzheimer. It affects about 2.5 million people in the USA and millions more around the globe According to the study, after monitoring the cholesterol and blood level of at least 1,500 people regularly in the 1970s and 1980s, the researchers re-examined them in 1998. They found that those who had high levels of both had a greater risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. The disease is twice as common in women as in men. There is no cure, and life expectancy is about seven years after diagnosis, the study showed. The results support the findings of two earlier studies that showed high blood pressure preceded the development of Alzheimer. The Finnish scientists also said it was important to identify early risk factors for the degenerative brain disease because the processes that trigger it may begin years before it is diagnosed.
ANI |
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CDS: will bureaucrats have last laugh? AS in most of our previous wars, the absence of a coordinated joint set-up was also felt in the Kargil war, though it was a localised operation called a “war-like situation”. In this war, our air action was delayed for a number of days because of the difference of opinion between the Army and the Air Force. It was only when this difference was resolved at meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) that the air action was put through in Kargil. Similarly, the decision to move the eastern fleet of our Navy into the Arabian Sea, to send a clear signal to Pakistan on what the escalation of the Kargil conflict had in store for it, was delayed until the Naval Chief had stressed on this point at the CCS meeting. All this once again brought to the fore the necessity of having a joint set-up for the armed forces. What was heartening this time was that the three service chiefs had a unanimity on this point. The Kargil Review Committee examined the necessity or otherwise of a joint head and recommended the appointment of a Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) for the armed forces besides recommending the restructuring of the Ministry of Defence (MOD). A tri-service exercise called “Exercise Bramhastra” was the first ever joint exercise held in May 2000, at the Western Command Headquarters. In this exercise, all the three service chiefs and senior defence officers interacted on inter-service aspects. The then Defence Minister, Mr George Fernandes, who attended the exercise said: “This kind of exercise is likely to become a regular annual feature”. Surprisingly, unlike in the past, the politicians, who always opposed the appointment of a joint chief, shed their fear of the Army becoming too strong. As a result, the Group of Ministers (GOM) recommended the appointment of a CDS. No sooner did this happen then the three services started pleading their cases: each service giving a justification as to why the appointment should go to it. The Army said that it had an “emphatic case” to have this post because of the Army’s involvement in war, in counter-insurgency and even in aid to civil power being the maximum. The Navy, on the other hand, staked its claim on the CDS’ appointment because of the Chief of the Naval Staff being the senior most. “Apart from this, it is the Navy which will play the most crucial role not only in maritime diplomacy but also in protecting the sea lanes of trade”, said the Naval authorities. The Air Force made the strongest claim by saying that “for the three services in the new millennium, an Air Force CDS will be able to streer the forces better”. It also said “that it is the IAF which has the concept of a strategic air command ready and in the present circumstances only the IAF can talk of a platform for delivering nuclear capable weapons”. This controversy was godsend to the wily Indian bureaucrat who at no cost is prepared to lose his power which he knows will be diminished by the appointment of a CDS and restructuring of the MOD. Gone are the days when Indian politicians were stronger than bureaucrats. In Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru’s era, it was he and Mr Krishna Menon who opposed the recommendation of Lord Mountbatton to appoint a CDS. This political legacy has continued for long. But for the last few years, the bureaucrats, because of the single party majority having become a thing of the past, call the shots. Take “one rank, one pension demand” of ex-servicemen. The demand was accepted by the National Front Government in 1989. And in his address to the nation after assuming office, the then Prime Minister Mr V.P. Singh said that his government “stood committed” to the demand and that the provision for the enhanced pensionary benefits was to be made in the 1990-91 budget. The then President, Mr R.Venkataraman, had made a similar commitment in his TV address in December 1989. What followed thereafter was the appointment of the Jaffa Committee which gave a bureaucratic burial to this demand. On April 10, 1999, Mr George Fernandes, the then Defence Minister, again lifted the spirits of ex-servicemen by announcing at Anandpur Sahib (in Punjab) that the “one rank, one pension demand had been accepted in principle and its implementation was a matter of only a few days”. Leave alone Mr Fernandes’ “few days”, nothing has happened even in a few years, thanks to the bureaucrats who have once again scuttled the issue. Coming back to the CDS issue, as soon as it started becoming clear that this post was likely to be created and given to the Naval Chief who is the senior most at present, senior Air Force officers began coming out with articles in newspapers. The articles opposed this appointment bringing out the futility of it and praising the present system of the Chiefs of Staff Committee. The Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Sushil Kumar, in his letter marked “personal and confidential” to the Defence Minister, Mr Jaswant Singh, has said that “he is not a contender for the post of CDS”. Is it the same Naval Chief who, being the senior most, had staked a claim to this appointment only a few months ago? And is this the same Air Force which claimed that this appointments should in all fairness go to it? Why this change of mind? Who says the Army is apolitical? A bureaucrat is a bureaucrat and come what may never will he lose his power that he knows he will lose if the MOD is restructured and the CDS’ appointment comes through. He is likely to show his craftsmanship again in scuttling the post of CDS. Finally, will the bureaucrat have the last laugh on the CDS controversy? if the past experience is anything to go by, one can make a safe guess that this appointment will not come through. But if a miracle happens this time, it will be an unexpected and happy break from the past. |
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‘NZCC financial mess was set right’ THIS refers to the write-up “How NZCC landed in financial mess”. It is shocking to note how facts have been distorted. The write-up states that there has been mismanagement of finances from the time when I was Director, North Zone Cultural Centre (NZCC), and invested Rs 315 lakh with HMT in 1994. It has been reported that since 1994 no interest has been paid to NZCC by HMT. In this connection it is clarified that Rs 315 lakh was deposited with HMT in 1994 with the permission of the Government of India. Till 1996 HMT paid full interest to NZCC. It was only in 1997 that irregularities in the payment of interest started occurring and the facts were immediately placed before the governing body and the Government of India. The amount of Rs 468 lakh deposited with SAIL is safe and intact. SAIL has paying the interest in advance without even a single default till date. A responsible officer of a Director’s rank, Mr R.T. Jindal, has absolutely misled the Press by stating how hard efforts have gone into recovering the deposited money from SAIL. This proves how facts have been manoeuvred to malign the image of an individual and of SAIL. After the experience with HMT, it was decided by the governing body that in future the corpus should be invested in banks, rather than going to PSU’s. Keeping in view the offers asked for, of the 11 banks, Patiala Central Co-operative Bank Ltd made the highest bid of interest rate of 12.24 per cent. The bank has so far not defaulted even once in making the payment on time. This is again malicious to say that my brother had been the branch manager of that particular branch whereas he had never been a manager of any branch in Patiala district. The correspondent does not seem to be aware to what extent NZCC has gone to promote “dying art forms” Bazigars, gatka, marasi, bhand, ragii, nachar, naqal, dhadi, bazigars, gatka performers, kalbelia dancers, bhawai dancer have been sent abroad to enlighten the masses there on the traditional arts of India. These performances were highly appreciated abroad. Even in India these “dying art forms” were promoted more than 100 times and their programmes were arranged in schools, colleges, universities and other institutions. Another fabricated statement says that “the standard reply is that no record is available and that it got destroyed in 1993-1994 floods. The fact is that no record has ever been destroyed which is required for any information purpose. The relevant record might be purposely avoided so that comparisons are not made with the past performance of NZCC. The facts have been distorted about the trips made abroad by me. To say that permission was taken only three times is again a misleading statement whereas it is on record that permission was taken in all visits abroad from competent authority i.e. the Chairman, NZCC. When it was desired by the Government of India that further permission ought to be sought from the Government Of India and in all tours after receipt of this letter, permission from the Government Of India was obtained while going abroad. Foreign trips were never organised for any personal gain but there was an exclusive budget for international programmes every year sanctioned by the Finance Committee chaired by the Joint Secretary, Govt. Of India, and the governing body headed by the Chairman, NZCC. Most of the programmes were organised by collecting advertisements from various channels and the amount kept in the budget was not even touched. Rather in some cases, the collection was higher than the expenditure incurred by NZCC and thus the saved money was utilised by NZCC in other programmes. Another allegation that my wife has been accompanying me as a choreographer on majority of the trips is another fabricated charge as she has gone abroad with me after taking permission from the Chairman NZCC, in her private capacity after purchasing her own ticket and taking ex-India leave from her department. To conclude the facts speak for themselves. When I took over, the corpus fund of NZCC was Rs 843.98 lakh against the required amount of Rs 975.55 lakh which was further built up to Rs 998.54 lakh with my strenuous efforts by saving on various programmes and non-programmes’ expenditure. The expenditure on printing and stationery which was Rs 4.61 lakh in 91-92 before my joining was never more than 87,000 in any particular year. The expenses incurred on transportation were Rs 8.58 lakh in 91-92 were brought down to Rs 5.6 lakh in 1992-93 and to Rs 5.01 lakh in (95-96) and so on inspite of an increase in petroleum prices. It is worth mentioning that the average number of programmes, which was 35 per year before my joining, was increased to 460 per year with the same budgetary allocations. When I joined in May, 1992, the accounts for 90-91 and 91-92 were neither compiled nor audited, the reason being that a huge amount of Rs 51 lakh was outstanding against officials of NZCC. Efforts were made to recover and a partial amount did come back. For the remaining amount, cases were filed in court. The actual mess in which NZCC had been at that time was set right. Accounts were compiled and got audited within a year of my joining. After that till I remained in the chair, the annual accounts were got compiled audited and submitted to the chairman/ finance committee/Government of India in the first week of April (within seven days of the close of financial year) without fail. No amount used to be outstanding on the close of the financial year against any employee during my tenure. Thus anybody can make out from these facts whether the financial mess was actually set right or not.
S.K. Ahluwalia, ex-Director, NZCC |
Cantonments Deputation A
deputation of the All-India Cantt's Associations, consisting of Mr Naronha, President, Mr Mohd. J. Ismail, Hon. Joint Secretary, Mr Roy, Vice President, Jubulpore, Raisahib Omkarpershad, Vice-President, Lahore Cantt, interviewed Mr Burden, Army Secretary at Simla Secretariat buildings. There was a full and free discussion lasting about four hours on the resolutions passed at the last session of the Cantt. Conference at Ambala. The attitude of Mr Bardon was sympathetic throughout and there was evident solicitude to further liberalise cantt administration on modern municipal lines. A press note about the details of the discussion will be shortly issued. |
The physical results and spiritual experiences of fasting are wonderful. The spirit within becomes dissociated from the demands of the body as the body itself is freed from gross habits. **** Think how conscientiously you keep your auto clean and in good repair. Much more complex than any car is the human body, and the Lord wants you to keep it clean and in good running order. **** Fasting gives rest to the overworked organs, the bodily engines, and also to the life force itself, relieving it of extra work. When you cease to make the life force feel it has to depend for its existence on external sources — food, water, oxygen, sunshine — it becomes self supporting, independent. — Excerpted from Paramahansa Yogananda's lecture at Self Realisation Los Angeles, March 9, 1939. |
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