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Tuesday,
May 27, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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The quota cauldron Dateline Palestine Costlier,
unavailable power |
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Reshuffle as an anti-climax
Filmy chat, up the lazy river
Politicians encouraging narcotics cultivation in HP Bumping into an ex
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The quota cauldron WHEN the Gehlot government in Rajasthan decided to give 14 per cent reservation in government jobs to the economically poor among the forward castes last week, the BJP indignantly called it a political stunt. Only four days later, it has sought to go one-up on the Congress by passing a resolution at the party’s national officer-bearers’ meeting in Jaipur requesting the Centre to “appoint a commission for Economically Backward Classes (EBCs) so that the economically weaker sections of society will also be helped, without diluting the protection to the socially backward classes”. The party has, understandably, not cared to explain how a move which is a stunt when introduced in a state becomes a forward step when it is sought to be introduced all over the country. That leaves the field clear for the public to draw its own conclusions. The most popular would be that it is an instance of unabashed political opportunism. The country is in the election mode and it is the auspicious time to make promises galore, whether you intend to keep them or not. Competitive appeasement is the name of the game. The BJP is not unaware that increasing the reservation beyond the 50 per cent upper limit fixed by the Supreme Court will require a constitutional amendment for which there just isn’t political consensus in the country. So, on paper, it has accepted a major demand of the forward castes without having to concede anything in actual terms. This is exactly what Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot had done some days ago and the BJP has now retaliated in kind. Both of them can now claim that while they are true benefactors of the forward castes, the other parties (and the judiciary) are coming in the way. Of late, the Congress has initiated several such half-baked moves which boomeranged on it. For instance, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh raked up the cow slaughter issue hoping to deprive the BJP of its pet peeve. But the latter outwitted him, so much so that Mrs Sonia Gandhi had to dissociate herself from the Madhya Pradesh move. The quota card of Mr Gehlot also falls in the same category. He may also find that he has been out-manoeuvred. All this aggressive populism might have remained a zero sum game but for the fact that it is weakening the social fabric of the country. The demand for increasing reservation has flared up through these short-sighted policies at a time when the need is to taper down this none-too-effective method of removing inequalities caused by centuries of discrimination. The talk of giving reservation to forward castes may also increase friction between various castes and sub-castes. All that for a few votes! Nothing could be more unfortunate. |
| Dateline Palestine THERE is good news from the Israeli-Palestinian front. The efforts to end the internecine conflict between the two sides have met with a major success with Israel accepting in principle the “road map” for peace prepared by the US, the UN, the European Union and Russia. It is for the first time that the Israeli Cabinet has put its seal of approval on the plan for an independent State of Palestine on the West Bank and Gaza, and that too under the leadership of Mr Ariel Sharon. The Likud leader has a history of opposing any move for a viable Palestinian homeland scheme ever since his party first came to power in 1977. All these years he has been working on translating his Greater Israel dream into a reality. He had been building more and more Jewish settlements in the West Bank area despite stiff opposition from the Palestinians as well as liberal groups within Israel. Even while agreeing to the creation of Palestine, he has made it sure that the new State, which should be born by 2005 in accordance with the latest agreement, is an emasculated entity. He has succeeded because America has history’s most pro-Israel administration today. The US-brokered “road map” has it that the reborn Palestine will have no defence force for safeguarding its borders. That will be the responsibility of Israel, which will also have control over the Palestinian airspace and water resources. Israel will be parting with only half of the occupied territories. These may become perennial sources of tension. Yet the Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas is elated at the development. That is because of one primary reason. He is hopeful of successfully meeting the basic Israeli condition: an end to suicide attacks on Jewish targets. The extremist Hamas leadership has offered to cooperate with him though with a rider — the Israeli soldiers and settlers in the Palestinian areas will not be spared. Perhaps, Mr Abbas believes that the Hamas promise to “ceasefire” against civilian targets will be sufficient to force Israel to implement the new plan with whatever weaknesses it has. After all, something is better than nothing. Once there is a change in the attitude of the
Hamas, the other militant outfits like the Islamic Jihad may fall in line. Senior Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s Fatah organisation too has a suicide wing. It is, however, unlikely to create problems in the way of Mr Abbas as he has been consulting his former chief off and on. There are two highly sensitive issues which have to be handled with great
care. These are the return of the Arab refugees to their homes in Israel and the status of East Jerusalem. The world will be watching with utmost curiosity how the two sides with the help of the authors of the “road map” cross these major hurdles while moving towards peace. |
| Costlier, unavailable power ON Friday the Punjab State Electricity Regulatory Commission announced a 6 to 13 per cent increase in the power tariff for the various categories of consumers, excluding farmers, in Punjab. How apologetic the Amarinder Singh government is about even the slightest burden on the consumer is evident from the simultaneous release of a full-page advertisement in newspapers claiming that “Punjab still has the cheapest electricity in India”. Even if this claim is true -- Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir used to offer (and perhaps still do) the cheapest power in the country -- the boast is uncalled for. What is required is not the “cheapest”, but an uninterrupted supply of quality power. Power cuts in summer are common and people still have to wait for fresh connections. Today Punjab’s total demand for power is 30,000 million units, but the state generates only 22,000 million units. The state is forced to buy 8,000 units at the rate of Rs 1.85 per unit from other states. To meet the increasing demand for electricity, Punjab will have to produce 2,000 MW more in the next four years, which will cost about Rs 11,000 crore. But neither the PSEB nor the state government has the funds to invest in the power sector. The private sector is staying away because of the near financial bankruptcy of the state. The ground reality is too shocking: the PSEB suffers an annual loss of Rs 1,000 crore despite repeated tariff hikes. For every 100 units sold 38 are lost in transmission, including pilferage. The PSEB suffers a loss of Rs 1,000 crore a year on account of subsidised power supply to farmers. Unless the PSEB is unbundled, the in-built inefficiencies, pilferage and corruption in the system would continue. The Punjab Government has introduced the Punjab State Electricity Bill, 2003, to unbundle the PSEB. But it is going too slow on reforms because of opposition from the well-entrenched interests. It is true the power reforms in certain states like Orissa have not yielded the desired results. But that is because they have undertaken the reforms rather half-heartedly. Haryana has reduced its losses by undertaking reforms and the state is going to claim a subsidy from the Centre, which has earmarked Rs 20,000 crore to reward the reforming states. Punjab has no alternative. The roadmap is clear. It has to implement the Haldea Committee report to get the PSEB out of the present mess and assure the consumer a regular power supply, of course at affordable rates. |
Reshuffle as an anti-climax AFTER all the build-up, fuss and pother and seemingly endless consultations at the top, the latest Cabinet reshuffle in New Delhi has turned out to be an anti-climax. The most advertised of the contemplated changes, the return to a ministerial berth of Ms Mamata Banerjee, the somewhat subdued Trinamool Congress leader, just did not materialise. Instead, the usually feisty lady's future has taken a bizarre turn, with the Prime Minister reaffirming that he would soon re-induct her into the Cabinet and she laying down her condition. She would, she has told the BJP leaders bluntly, not tolerate any member of her party being made a member of the Council of Ministers without her consent. Thereby hangs an intriguing tale to which I will return presently. First, we must look at two other features of the lacklustre shuffling of the pack that are of far-reaching importance. The first is the dark shadow of a massive bribery scandal at the heart of the government, the Finance Ministry, that burst into the open on the eve of the reshuffle. Inevitably, it clouded the ministerial changes, such as they are, and robbed the dispensation presided over by Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee of some of its shine. Personal assistants of ministers do not transfer senior officers for which they can hope to extort large dollops of cash through dubious intermediaries. They, even those with established reputations as alleged "fixers", usually act as proxies for their bosses. Consequently, nobody is buying the pretence that the PA in this particular case was making money on his own. And yet the Minister of State concerned, Mr G. Ramachandaran, dug his toes in and refused for full two days to tender his resignation. He eventually submitted it only when threatened with dismissal. More revealing is the CBI's statement that what has been exposed to the light of day is only a very small tip of a gigantic iceberg. There seems to be plenty of evidence to show that the racket is shockingly huge and fully institutionalised. In fact, transfers to lucrative posts are being virtually auctioned. What is more, it has been clearly established that within an hour of the order of transfer of 54 officers being signed, its copy was faxed to unauthorised and dubious individuals. Realising how deep the rot had gone, the Finance Minister, Mr Jaswant Singh, immediately put all transfers on hold. Add to this the all but forgotten case of the Chairman of the Board of Customs and Excise, who is technically still under arrest but not yet under trial, and the enormity of corruption rampant in the revenue-gathering machine starts becoming clear. Under the circumstances, the ruling alliance's claim that it is giving the country a "clean administration" cannot hold water, Cabinet reshuffle or no Cabinet reshuffle. The second aspect of the current reshuffle is equally disturbing though it is not squalid. Quite clearly, the Prime Minister's authority continues to be eroded by his party colleagues and that Atalji is putting up with this for reasons of his own. As many as six meetings of a small but topnotch group had to take place before the reshuffle plan could be clinched and, ironically, at the end of the day the Prime Minister was clearly embarrassed by his inability to bring Ms Banerjee back to his Cabinet. Usually, the Prime Minister's prerogative to form or reshuffle his or her Council of Ministers is absolute though it is his or her discretion briefly to consult anyone. But never before have such consultations been so extensive and so decisive as to be binding on the Prime Minister. The composition of the cabal that took the decisions is instructive. Its most important member after Atalji was, of course, the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr L.K. Advani. The next in line was the BJP president, Mr. Venkaiah Naidu, who apparently wields more clout than any of his predecessors has done before him. The fourth member of the group was Mr Jaswant Singh. Significantly, on one of the six occasions, the NDA convener, Mr George Fernandes, joined the meeting of the decision-makers and on another the BJP general secretary, Mr Pramod Mahajan, did so. This shows how far and how fast the Prime Minister's authority has been undermined and new apex of the power structure has developed. The driving force behind this change and indeed behind the entire pattern of Cabinet changes is the Lok Sabha election due in October 2004 that will be preceded by assembly elections in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi and Chhattisgarh, all of which are Congress-ruled states. The hard-liners in the party hierarchy, Mr Naidu and Mr Advani in particular, are determined that the BJP must try to win a majority of seats in all these polls on its own and therefore, if necessary, the NDA's allies should be shown their place. Both the Mamata fiasco and the ouster from the Cabinet of Mr Ajit Singh are direct results of this new, tough strategy even though it runs counter to the Prime Minister's personal preference. He is for carrying the allies with him and ensuring that the NDA collectively comes back to power for another five years. It is no secret that Atalji's position is stronger in the wider alliance than within the confines of his own party, the BJP, with the RSS breathing down its neck. Thus it was that the hard-liners could insist that while bringing back Ms Banerjee into the Cabinet, the Trinamool dissident, Mr Sudip Bandopadhyay must also be appointed Minister of State. This was totally unacceptable to her because Mr Bandopadhyay has become a thorn in her side and is indeed threatening to split the Trinamool Congress. That is precisely what BJP hard-liners also want. A split Trinamool, they believe, would bring Ms Banerjee down a peg or two and consequently the BJP unit of West Bengal would gain ascendancy over it. More importantly, besides strengthening their position in West Bengal, the BJP hard-liners, by deflating "Mamatadi", want to convey a signal to the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Ms Mayawati, who is riding a high horse. She has indeed converted the BJP in the key state into her party's ineffectual appendage. She has, moreover, refused to commit herself to an alliance with the BJP in states outside UP in the Lok Sabha poll. With Ms Banerjee untamed, the imperious Ms Mayawati can only laugh. Hence the Prime Minister's hope of bringing about a "mini-reshuffle" to bring back Ms. Banerjee and to fill the vacancy caused by the inglorious exit of Mr G. Ramachandaran belonging to the MDMK. These are sideshows, however, compared with the BJP's overwhelming preoccupation with the coming elections. Almost all the changes in and additions to the Council of Ministers have been geared to that purpose. Because the party's stakes in the assembly elections in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh are high, supposedly influential leaders from these states have been included. Even so, the BJP's concern over its shrinking base persists. This is what has necessitated the return to the Union Cabinet of the former UP Chief Minister, Mr Rajnath Singh. Even more remarkable is the appointment as Minister of State for Home of Swami Chinmayanand, one of the most active advocates of the speedy construction of Ram temple at Ayodhya. The meaning of his sudden elevation ought to be clear even to the meanest intelligence. |
Filmy chat, up the lazy river AISHWARYA
RAI being on the jury at the Cannes film festival, the Johannesburg IIFA awards, and Ismail Merchant’s similar elbow-grease in June in the US of A, take my mind back to a filmy-gossip session that we had with an American family cruising on the lazy river — Mississippi. Two hundred miles from the Gulf of Mexico, up stream the river we were waiting at the launch for the cruise boat. The boat would take us up to an “island of civilisation in an ocean of wilderness and a prize eagerly sought” — the city of New Orleans. Three hundred years ago when St Petersburg in Russia and Jaipur in India had been founded there were only 250 men and women who settled here. Today it is America’s third largest city. They bury their dead not under the ground but above it, in stacks. New Orleans is known for its swamps besides the Cajuns and the festival of Mardi Gras. It was raining cats and dogs when we queued up for the cruise. On its arrival we made a dash for the boat only to suffer the bullet-like raindrops. Having embarked, we made it to another queue, this time to the beer-counter. Once there were flourishing plantations on either bank of the Mississippi which employed slaves in plenty. The mighty river here flows about 10 to 15 feet above the sea level with its mud banks. Long barges full of merchandise bear testimony to the river having historically been associated with trade and commerce. Also with death, disease and the miasma. The boat moved swiftly in a U-shaped voyage around the city of New Orleans. We met a family of three from Florida who had come for a holiday. We found in them a curious pack of parents and a daughter interested to interact with us and know some more on Indian lifestyles, culture and of course (surprisingly for us) the films, on knowing that we were from India. Perhaps seeing us completely drenched they started talking about “Monsoon Wedding” which they had seen only the preceding week. They praised the movie with a clause — the dialogues replete with four-letter words and abuses in Hindi and their translated titles in English were indecent. “It is only in a family atmosphere that they dislike all this,” I whispered in an aside to my friend who chimed in: “Of course their films offer more of gutter speak.” We had a hearty laugh. They knew about “The Guru” and “Bend it like Beckham” too. The next movie to feature in our discussion was “American Desi”. Our cruise-mates from Florida described it as an Indian remake of “16 Candles” and “Pretty in Pink”. “The characters are all brimming over with the ethnicity they belonged to yet they are comparable with the replete pseudoism of the American teenagers’ lifestyle, perceived in their own way, with the only exception of Kris (actually Krishna) — the American Desi,” declared the head of the family. “And how did you like the love for Dandya, Garba and Bhangra?” I sought to know out of curiosity. “Well, tell us the meaning of Desi first!” the eighteen or so girl asked me. I tried and could explain only the connotations. The yellow bulbs on the Mississippi Bridge glowed and their reflection in the waters below doubled the pleasure of looking at the dancing beams. The family from Florida went their own way with a near-diplomatic exchange of niceties and promises to “stay in touch”. Till we reached the French Quarter, my mind was still searching for a Queen’s English parallel for Desi, although in American English it comes near a dope, a dandy or a yankee.
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Politicians encouraging narcotics cultivation in HP Manali: After gaining notoriety for its ubiquitous drug trade, the Valley of Gods, Kulu, is witnessing a new churning. A concerted campaign has been launched by various enforcement agencies to wean the locals from cultivating poppy and cannabis, which have become major cash crops in Parbati, Sainj and the Banjar valley in Kulu district and the Chuhar valley in Mandi.
International funding under the UN Drug Control Programme is being sought to provide alternatives to the narcotics plantation in the valley. The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) has sought a blueprint of a composite project for UN funding from the state government. “Operation Poppy- Cannabis Destruction” has gained momentum with the active involvement of the Customs Department and the NCB, besides the occasional police forays into the cannabis hinterland of the valley. Much against the spirit of fresh concerns to curb drug trade in the valley, the local politicians have struck a jarring note by raising the bogey of legalising the cultivation of narcotics. It is ironical that instead of supplementing the efforts of the enforcement agencies, some local politicians are virtually instigating the cultivators by assuring them that they would get narcotics cultivation legalised. “They are merely trying to mislead the people for their narrow political interests. The promise has been made for the past 20 years. People should understand that the cultivation of narcotic plants will never be legalised,” says a senior officer of the NCB. The central government has allowed limited permits for growing narcotic plants in only three states - Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. This has been done to meet the requirement of the pharmaceutical industry. “ There is no scope of this happening in HP,since the production from these three states is enough to meet the demand of the industry,” says an official of the Customs Department. The issue reverberated in the State Assembly when Mr Kaul Singh Thakur of the Congress sought the passing of a resolution calling upon the Centre to allow limited permission for the cultivation of poppy. Besides Kulu, the neighbouring Chuhar valley in Mandi district is a major hub of narcotics cultivation, which is part of Mr Singh’s Darang constituency. Though Mr Thakur, Minister for Irrigation and Public Health, does not ostensibly support poppy cultivation till the green signal from the central government, he emphasises the socio-economic milieu which drew the locals towards the drug trade. “ I am in favour of allowing cultivation under strict government control after gauging the annual requirement of the medicinal industry. As per estimates the demand of the pharma sector is increasing by 15 per cent every year. So there is a case for including Himachal in the list of the states where it has been legalised,” says Mr Thakur. Cannabis has for long been part and parcel of the lifestyle of the locals in Kulu. The cannabis fibre is used for making ropes and shoes, apart from being an essential ingredient in many local dishes. It was only after the enactment of the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (NDPS) that cannabis came under the category of a contraband, which led to an instant rise in its value in the drug market. While the valley’s climate has always been conducive to the growth of cannabis plants, the decreasing quantum of snow has caused a repeated failure of the apple crop. “ Due to climatic changes, the apple crop is becoming unremunerative. We are poor and our survival is at stake. We don’t have any alternative to growing cannabis which requires minimum inputs,” says Ashok Kumar of Banjar. The Parbati, Malana and Banjar regions of Kulu and the Chuhar valley and the Bali Chowki area in Mandi are the biggest cannabis and poppy producing areas. As per rough estimates of the NCB, more than 10,000 bighas in Mandi are under the cannabis and poppy cultivation. The Chuhar valley is specially notorious for poppy cultivation, where the Customs Department recently destroyed the crop. “ More than 65 per cent of the cultivable land in the Chuhar valley is covered by poppy plants,” says Mr O.P. Sharma, Superintendent, NCB. While the enforcement agencies are cracking down on this illegal activity, they concede extreme poverty and illiteracy are the compelling reasons for the locals resorting to the trade. The rewards for narcotics cultivation are huge. A cultivator gets over Rs 6,000 per kilogram for growing cannabis, which is an astronomical sum compared to potatoes or apples — the other cash crops of the valley. A spurt in tourist activity in the Kulu-Manali region and an invasion the Hippie culture have provided vital ingredients to the mushrooming drug trade. The role of foreigners, particularly from Israel, Italy and some other European countries, have come under close scrutiny of the enforcement agencies. NCB sources say many foreigners linked to international drug cartels descending on the valley, offer money to locals for contracting out their fields for cannabis and poppy. The contraband trade in the valley is heavily linked to Goa and international destinations. In the past two years alone at least 115 foreign nationals have been arrested and nearly 800 kg of hashish, opium, brown sugar and other drugs seized from them. The police is often handicapped due to the shortage of staff. Foreigners go into far-off villages in the valley, which are accessible only on foot, for encouraging the cultivation of the contraband. “We do not have enough police personnel to keep watch on the poppy cultivators,” says Mr Kushal Sharma, DSP, Manali. Tracking contraband is just an occasional activity for the police because of other day-to-day engagements. There are only 250-odd constables in Kulu district, while the minimum requirement is for over 500. The Customs Department, which opened an office in Kulu last year to check the drug trade, is trying to educate people, besides occasionally destroying narcotic plants. “ We hardly get any support from the locals when we go to destroy narcotic plants. Rather people are hostile since the trade is linked to their livelihood. There is need for wider social awareness about narcotics,” says Mr K.N. Bhardwaj, Superintendent, Customs. Poverty and lack of viable alternatives are the factors encouraging people to cultivate narcotics in Kulu. Any campaign against the drug trade in the valley can only be successful by adopting a holistic approach to the problem. |
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Bumping into an ex EXES have long been the broken paving stone of romance — one minute you’re blithely mooching around, the next, you’re tripping over them and looking for someone to sue. At Cannes, Nicole Kidman hired an army of personnel to ensure her path never crossed with Tom Cruise or Penelope Cruz. The rest of us simply do our best to avoid contact. Hide behind menus, dive into potted plants, if forced into conversation suddenly remember that one’s hair is dirty and needs washing immediately. At such points, you’d give anything to be able to press ‘delete’ and wipe clean their memory banks, find the file named ‘You’ and drag it over to the wastepaper basket of oblivion. The ego being what it is, not for one second does it occur to us that exes are capable of doing this all by themselves. And that, like my friend, it’s possible to eat with someone, laugh with someone, even sleep with someone, and then, only a few years later, be stared at with unthinking amiability, like you just never happened. In case of a friend of mine, she hadn’t thought about this man in years, but now of course she is obsessed with him for He Dared To Forget. She wants him arrested and tortured, forced to remember his whereabouts between those inconsequential few months at the end of 1998. On a more serious note, she found it chilling that she could be forgotten so completely, so absolutely, and I did, too. Are people so disposable these days? As with fast food, will we soon have fast relationships, where remembering each person will seem as silly as remembering each burger? Still outraged, I set myself an exercise, sitting down and trying to remember the Mr So-Whats from my own distant past. Having conducted myself with supreme dignity and sobriety at all times in my life, I thought this would be a piece of cake, but I had a shock. Certain exes appeared in my mind’s eye a bit like incomplete Mr Potato Heads, some parts missing, glasses coming on and off, voices wobbling about all over the place. Slowly it dawned on me: If this was a police line-up I’d be in grave danger of sending the wrong men to jail. So how could I possibly object if they forgot me? As I said to my friend: it wasn’t a humiliation thing, it was a human thing. The big stuff you remember, but other than that, people come and people go, and most of the relevant data has to go with them, otherwise you’d go crazy. Looking at it like this, we all have to come to terms with our inherent forgettability, even if it does reduce a large portion of our love lives to the status of Bobby’s dream in Dallas (`Did we happen? Did we not happen? Pass the soap, I feel unclean’). My friend wasn’t impressed. Her argument was that she didn’t want to be remembered so much as she wanted in on this forgetting business. In short, she wants to forget him back. That’s the trick with romantic amnesia — it’s all eminently acceptable so long as you remember to synchronise. The Guardian
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The mind must be kept in repose and balance. Work done with a disturbed mind under nervous tension or forced rest taken in a nervous state of mind are both harmful for health and ultimately lead to disease. Physical work becomes less tiring if it is done with a mind at ease. Relaxation with a peaceful mind overcomes fatigue soon. — Sudarshan Kumar Biala, Yoga for Better Living and Self Realisation. The enlightened mind is its own heaven, The unenlightened mind its own hell. — Chinese proverb |
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