 |
|
Generally speaking Flawed scheme |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Liquor is quicker
Mess in mainstream
parties
The harbinger of
renaissance
Indian
stars shine in Pakistan ‘New
fundamentalism sweeping media’ Delhi
Durbar
|
|
Flawed scheme FEW will support the demand for increasing the allocation under the MPs’ Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS) from Rs 2 crore to Rs 5 crore per MP per year. On the contrary, there is a strong case for scrapping the scheme altogether as it has been creating problems ever since it was introduced by the P.V. Narasimha Rao government in 1993. Apparently, what prompted the members to demand a hike in the allocation is the report by New Delhi’s Institute of Social Sciences which found the very concept of the scheme flawed and called for its immediate withdrawal. The report, “MPLADS: Concept, confusion and contradictions”, written by former Public Accounts Committee Chairman Era Sezhian, says that it distorted the MPs’ role in the federal system and diverted funds which should have actually gone to agencies like the Panchayati Raj institutions. In a parliamentary democracy, while Parliament sanctions money for schemes approved by the House, the MPs supervise and control the executive on the fund use. The scheme distorts the MP’s role because it is not the person’s, but the executive’s duty to implement a sanctioned project. Moreover, when Parliament approves a project, it becomes a collective effort and no individual MP can decide on the fund use. Thus, the scheme militates against the demarcation of responsibilities between the legislature and the executive. It is also inconsistent with the spirit of federalism as it encroaches on areas coming under local government institutions. Little surprise, the National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution had recommended the withdrawal of the scheme. The Comptroller and Auditor-General has time and again pointed out that in many states, funds have either been misused or have lapsed or the unspent money has not been returned. Strangely, projects not recommended by the MPs have also been executed under this pet scheme. Non-submission of utilisation certificates, closure of the projects midway and the absence of a proper accounting procedure are the other problems. As it is riddled with many inconsistencies leading to a parallel planning system, there is a strong case for dispensing with the scheme. |
|
Liquor is quicker IT is time to uncork the champagne. Department stores in Chandigarh will henceforth stock the bubbly as well as beer, thanks to the new excise policy of the Administration. And that’s not all: Cider and ready-to-drink cocktails of alcohol and fruit juices too will be on offer; pubs and bars would also be allowed to serve these drinks which were hitherto hemmed in by restrictions. If the neighbourhood store stocking booze on its shelves had to happen in India, it is only natural that it should happen in Chandigarh. After all, the Union Territory is the most continental of Indian cities, and not only because a French architect designed it. The department stores have an ambience that can never be acquired by the liquor shops, which, despite drinking being widely prevalent, are seen as somewhat seedy. So much so, that rarely does one see ladies who imbibe making a trip to the liquor shop. Now, the lady of the house would perhaps be imposed upon to carry the can of beer as well when she goes to the department store. When he wrote, “Candy is dandy but liquor is quicker”, Ogden Nash may not have foreseen a time when department stores would make space on their shelves to stock both candy and liquor. Anyway, what is at issue now in Chandigarh, Punjab and Haryana has nothing to do with literary licence. The preoccupation is with licence of the sarkari variety. While, an individual has won the auction bids for vends in Punjab, in Haryana a syndicate has taken control of the liquor trade. India may not yet be a land flowing with milk and honey, but liquor is flowing freely. A boom rooted in booze cannot escape the inevitable headaches that come with the hangover. Glass struggle has its own contradictions. The line dividing the glass that cheers from the glass that inebriates is indeed thin. |
|
Good luck is the result of hard work and preparation.
—Anonymous |
Mess in mainstream parties WHAT a spectacle the octogenarian Mr K. Karunakaran, the veteran Congress leader in Kerala, is making of himself as well as of the once grand, old party of which he has been a member for six decades! After rabble-rousing in his home state for weeks, he was in Delhi over the weekend and was granted an audience with the Congress president, Ms Sonia Gandhi. Her instructions — that the plans for a rally by the Karunakaran-led Congress rebels at Thiruvananthapuram on Monday should be abandoned — was broadcast to the country, loud and clear, by her political secretary, Mr Ahmed Patel, who had earlier announced the “suspension” of Mr Karunakaran’s son, Mr K. Murleedharan, a former state Congress chief. None of this deterred the patriarch, of course. He held an impressively large rally — at which 13 Congress members of the Kerala Assembly were present — where he and his son declared that they would “continue their war against the state Chief Minister, Mr Oommen Chandy, come what may”. The irony is that Mr Chandy could become Chief Minister only a few months ago because the Karunakaran faction had succeeded in ousting Mr A. K. Antony. No prizes need be offered for guessing who Mr Karunakaran’s choice for the post of Chief Minister is. Like everybody else in Indian politics with enough clout, irrespective of party label, he wants to ensure the “future of his family”. He wants his son to take over now because panchayat elections are due within six months and the assembly poll in February next. His daughter, Ms Padmaja Venugopal, is also in the queue for a sinecure. In the Lok Sabha election 10 months ago, the Left had thrashed the Congress, winning 19 Lok Sabha seats out of 20, regardless of its subsequent support from “outside” to the Manmohan Singh government. The way things are going, Mr Karunakaran might end up splitting the Congress in Kerala. The Congress “high command” cannot afford to be perceived as pusillanimous and helpless against his indiscipline. Moreover, his son favours a split and joining the CPM-led Left Front, the likely winner. But the moot point is whether the CPM — itself a victim of intense factionalism in Kerala — would welcome Trojan horses. Rank divisions and indiscipline in the Congress in Kerala may be particularly blatant and brazen, but the plight of the Congress party elsewhere is hardly better. Factional strife is rampant practically across the board. It came out into the open in Maharashtra, for instance, only the other day over the issue of demolition of slums. The party’s
central leadership sided with the faction opposed to the Chief Minister, Mr Vilasrao Deshmukh. The resultant bad blood, combined with the unending tension with the Nationalist Congress Party ally, has added to the Congress woes. Even in Karnataka, where the Congress shares power uneasily with the party of the former Prime Minister, Mr Deve Gowda, factionalism has touched such low depths that rival Congressmen are filing criminal cases against one another! In Haryana the Congress party’s spectacular victory in the recent election was marred more than somewhat by Mr Bhajan Lal’s revolt, with the support of 20 MLAs, against Ms. Sonia Gandhi’s nomination — at the “unanimous” request of the state legislature party — of Mr Bhupinder Singh Hooda as Chief Minister Normalcy was restored only after Mr Bhajan Lal’s son was assured the post of Deputy Chief Minister and he given other sops. This, combined with the Congress folly in Goa and Jharkhand, has unsurprisingly raised the morale of the saffron camp, headed by the BJP, that had hitherto been in the dumps and generally ineffectual in Parliament. In fact, the CPM leader, Mr Prakash Karat — Mr Harkishen Singh Surjeet’s likely successor as the party General Secretary — has blamed the Congress for the BJP “revival”. The truth, however, is that the BJP, too, has no cause to jump with joy. Factionalism within it is only a little less virulent than that in the Congress. By a remarkable coincidence, the day Mr Ahmed Patel was publicly warning the rebellious Mr Karunakaran, the BJP’s chief troubleshooter, Mr Arun Jaitley, was in Bhopal, reading out the riot act to the saffron-clad Ms Uma Bharati and her collaborators for their attempt to destabilise the Chief Minister, Mr Gaur. Her tantrums in the presence of top party leaders have been no less crude and rude than Mr Karunakaran’s defiance. Only the US denial of a visa to him has temporarily subdued the revolt in Gujarat against Mr Narendra Modi. It is only a matter of time before the demand for his removal picks up again. And while on the subject, one cannot avoid referring to the thinly veiled traditional tussle at the very top — between the much-respected Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Mr L K Advani, more a nominal than actual leader of the Opposition, as of now. Those who used to boast that the BJP was a “party with a difference” are running for cover because their party is being “torn by differences”. Several Congress leaders I have discussed the matter with are trying to console themselves with the thought that factionalism in their party has been endemic and goes back to the Surat Congress in 1907 where rival delegates flung chairs at each other. And yet, they say, the party had flourished time and again and would surely do so again. These dreamers need to be told that what could happen at the end of the sixties and early seventies and again in the eighties is no longer feasible. There is no Indira Gandhi on the scene. Globalisation has rendered populism irrelevant, indeed counter-productive. And the era of one-party dominance has yielded place to the age of coalitions in a milieu in which fragmentation of the polity is escalating all the time. In the previous Lok Sabha the two mainstream parties, the Congress and the BJP, together did not have even 300 members in the 543-member Lok Sabha. This disturbing situation has worsened in the present House. At this rate on some future date a newly elected Lok Sabha might be indistinguishable from today’s Bihar Assembly. There is, of course, no provision for President’s rule at the Centre. So, the only alternative to instant fresh election would have to be some kind of a comprise among politicians squabbling like a gaggle of geese. How to avert such a disastrous situation from arising is a vast subject that will have to be taken up
separately. |
The harbinger of renaissance
According to an old Punjabi adage, Christians in North India, especially in Punjab, are like a pinch of salt in the whole kneaded flour, but their achievements in respective field of progress, whether of government or public sector, outwash their size. Like Parsi diaspora, they left behind a rich legacy of universal tolerance, secular zeal, brotherhood of humanity and probity. Due to ceaseless tension-ridden ruling politics and political backwardness which Christians face in north India, their festivals are lesser known to rank and file except Christmas which has been commercialised all over the world. Easter in colloquial Punjabi is better known to be “Id of Christians”. Id is not an equivocal translation which also means sacrifice! Resurrection is to be distinguished from resuscitation or reanimation of the physical body. It denotes a complete transformation of the human being in his or her psychosomatic totality. The earliest witness of the Easter events is to be found in I Corth (15:3-8) Paul wrote his account around A.D. 55. He quoted what he delivered. Mary Magdalene and other women on visiting the tomb where Jesus was buried, discovered it empty. The disciples after the appearances welcomed the women’s report as congruous with their faith in the resurrection and developed the empty tomb narrative as vehicle for Easter proclamation. It appeared as Christian’s festival to celebrate Jesus’ resurrection. In fact the name “Easter” derives from the Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring “Eostre or Ostara” but the Christian festival developed the Jewish “Passover” because according to Gospel the events of Jesus’ last days took place at the time of Passover. Gentile Christians began to celebrate it on the Sunday after 14 of Hisan (Hebrew month), with proceedings of Friday observed as the day of Christ’s crucifixion. The resulting controversy over the correct time for observing the Easter festival reached a head in AD 197 when victor of Rome excommunicated those Christians who insisted on celebrating Easter on 14 of Hisan. It was emperor Constantine who fixed empire-wide practice to celebrate Easter on Sunday after 14 of Hisan. Big cities like Chandigarh and Ludhiana being commercial hubs of Punjab, Christians celebrate Easter with religious fervour. The sunrise service is an attractive moment scheduled almost in every church. Devotees start pouring into the church campus in the dark hours of the dawn. Some go to graveyard to light a candle on the lichened and time weathered graves of their near and dear to pay heartful obeisance in commemorative and nostalgic emotional outburst. After the sunrise service the youth of the church show exuberant spirit of enthusiasm to distribute egg “langar”. Boiled eggs are given away even on roads to passersby, bystanders and others. Old women dole out pittance to poor and crippled beggars. Egg perhaps denotes the sign of life. Dew-washed golden rays of the rising sun lick church dome with an assuring newness and renaissance. Where is thy sting O’ Death? Death be not proud as thou have been conquered.
|
Indian stars shine in Pakistan It is, perhaps, because of common culture, linguistics, history and heritage. You talk of music, education, films, sports, agriculture, political system or any social activity, you find India figuring prominently. Even the political system is compared with that in India, though it is a different matter that democracy, despite some efforts, has failed to take root in Pakistan. I had an interesting experience when I visited a shop to buy cassettes of Pakistani Punjabi folk singers such as Pathane Khan, Akram Rahi, Tuffail Niazi, Shaukat Ali, Farida Khanum. Without bothering to know what I wanted to buy, the salesman asked: “Are you from India? Do you know Rabbi Shergill? “Yes, I know him. His village is just across the border in India and distance wise nearer to Lahore than from my native village in Indian Punjab”. He was a bit surprised. I saw many girls coming to shop and straightway asking for Rabbi’s cassette “Bulla ki jana”. While in India, Mehandi Hasan and Gulam Ali are popular, in Pakistan cassettes of Indian film songs and Punjabi folk singers have a big market. Wherever you go, you hear Indian songs. “Veer-Zara” seems to have become a craze in Pakistan. It is run and re-run on city channels day and night. Shahrukh Khan, Rani Mukherjee, Salman Khan and Gurdas Mann hold a sway over the minds of men and women. When an Indian delegation entered Pakistan via the Wagah border recently, there were several college girls to welcome the guests. And the first question posed by these girls to some Indians was whether any of them knew Shahrukh Khan. There is an amazing curiosity among Pakistanis, especially youth, about Indian heroes. They are as fond of Sachin Tendulakar’s brilliance and poise as Indians. They also love to talk about graceful Rahul Dravid and about the fiery Virender Sehwag as millions of Indians do. Indian serials, sarees, fashion trends fascinate Pakistanis. In Anarkali Bazar, there is an exclusive saree store with a blazing signboard “Saree Mahal”. Of course, girls don’t wear jeans there, but Pakistani women are apparently more fashionable than their Indian counterparts. Women attend night parties and participate in political and non-political discussions. They drive cars as Indian women do. Burqa-clad women are a rare sight in cities like Lahore and Islamabad, which are as crowded with foreign cars as Chandigarh and Delhi. It is for sure that Indian TV has made a strong influence on Pakistani society. For educational institutions, the Indian education system is a path setter. Computer and information technology are most sought-after subjects. Most positive development is the focus on education for girls. Exclusive higher education institutions have been set up to promote education among women. New university campuses are being set up in rural Punjab, that has 62 per cent of the total population of Pakistan. “India is far ahead in this field”, admit Pakistan officials. Like India, Pakistan is out to improve infrastructure. The motorway from Lahore to Islamabad is one of the best in the world. Islamabad, built in the 70s, is far more beautiful than Chandigarh. Those who have seen it at midnight from Daman-e-Koh, a hill top, will certainly agree to what I say. There is a turn-around in Pakistan’s economy. A five-fold increase in the shares of leading Pakistan banks in the recent past is an indicator of the developing economy. Banks have pumped in a lot of money in social sectors such as housing like India. There is a strong yearning among Pakistan politicians to have a democratic system like India which, regardless of several drawbacks, ensures a smooth transfer of power. They appreciate the way
Indians have built up political institutions. Of course, corruption is as big an issue in Pakistan as it is in India. There is hardly any difference of functioning of the police in both countries. Rough and shoddy police functioning is an eye sore. The media is relatively free and has started emerging as a powerful institution. However, newspapers, because of the price factor, are beyond the reach of an average Pakistani. The Pakistani establishment seems to be in direct confrontation with fundamentalists. From Afghanistan experience, it perhaps, has realised that how dangerous it can be for the country to be dominated by intolerant religious elements. Now it is trying hard for the moderation of society. Mr Khalid Maqbool Khan had no hesitation to tell the Indian delegation that the Pakistan authorities were trying to inculcate moderation among people by making them understand that Islam is an embodiment of tolerance and progress and those who are pushing it towards bigotry and intolerance are harming the religion. |
|
‘New fundamentalism sweeping media’ Dissent is slowly dying in mainstream media, which has become increasingly hostage to market forces and narrow patriotic sentiments, especially in the US, says media guru and culture critic Stuart Allan. This new culture of media fundamentalism, which came to the fore during reporting on the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon in the US, continues to be the dominant trend, Allan told IANS in an interview here. Allan, a Canadian academic, has co-edited “Journalism after September 11” — a collection of essays by top academics and culture critics that takes a hard look at the issues raised by reporting of the defining event of Sep 11, 2001, and its impact on the news culture. “America is becoming an insular, closed society. There is little tolerance for dissenting viewpoints,” bemoans Allan, who is in India to initiate a dialogue on teaching journalism from a critical perspective. He teaches cultural and media studies at the University of West of England, Bristol. “Americans are becoming afraid of even writing letters to editors. They don’t want to be associated with dissent. Those who differ with (President George W.) Bush are ideologically suspect. Post-9/11, there is a heightened sense of fear and paranoia in American society,” says he, while pointing to an increasing uniformity of views in mainstream press. “Journalists have become complicit in the official interpretation of events,” he adds, alluding to the practice of “embedded journalism” — reporters were sent along with American troops to cover the battle live —during the reporting of the Iraq war. Allan blames market pressures for this homogenisation. “Television news is in a state of crisis sparked by competitive obsession to be first with the story. Television news is at the service of headlines. People are confusing quantity with quality,” he says, stressing that this is the global trend. “There is a desperate desire to come out with breaking news of some significance. That must necessarily distort reporting and in-depth analysis.” Analysing the deeper roots of manufactured consensus in the media, he says: “Television network executives and editors are trying to follow the audience rather than lead the audience.” The increasing “tabloidisation” of the media, he asserts, is a consequence of treating viewers as consumers rather than as citizens in need of accurate information and quality analysis. But don’t despair yet. There is still hope for a lively and germane journalism that resonates with the real needs of the people. “There are signs of life in the press. The New York Times had its famous mea culpa last year. The Washington Post has also improved,” he says, while alluding to the crisis that engulfed the New York Times when one of its star reporters was found guilty of plagiarism. What’s the way out from this sustained blitz of distracting trivia and entertainment masquerading as news? “We have to disengage journalism from its commercial imperatives. The solution is public interest journalism,” says Allan. “It’s time television news networks and the mainstream media in general reaffirm their sense of connection to an audience and practise socially responsible journalism. They should focus on public interest as opposed to what the public wants,” says Allan, the author of “News Culture”. The idea is to include the have-nots of the news culture in their target audience. “The mainstream press should stand up for those who don’t have a voice and whose perspectives don’t get play in mainstream press. They have to reinvent themselves to reach to a younger audience who are feeling increasingly left out of the news culture.” Allan looks to Internet as the last hope for a radical and original journalism for the people and by the people, a place where they can freely express their viewpoints that are blocked in mainstream
press. — IANS |
|
|
Delhi Durbar Janata
Dal (U) leader Nitish Kumar, who was one of the strongest claimants for the post of Chief Minister in his native state of Bihar, is no more averse to his arch political rival Laloo Prasad Yadav. He told his friends that his objective of teaching a lesson to the RJD supremo is now over and he would not mind bringing the old socialists on one platform, which is nothing but the revival of the Third Front. “But the time is not yet ripe for it and we will have to wait a little more, he observed. Interestingly, it coincided with the 95th birth anniversary of Ram Manohar
Lohia. Rajya Sabha misinformed Discussions on the Patents Bill were to start in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday after the lunch break, but neither Commerce Minister Kamal Nath nor any other minister was present in the House. So the opposition members asked Deputy Chairman K Rehman to
adjourn the House for 10 minutes. The House was informed that the minister was held up because he was meeting IMF officials but, in fact, he was attending a lunch in honour of media baron Rupert Murdoch. Cracks in the cohesive Red The Patents Bill brought out cracks within the so- called cohesive Left parties, with the CPI, the Revolutionary Socialist Party and the All India Forward Bloc expressing dissatisfaction in the manner in which “big brother” CPM bulldozed the issue and forced them to support the legislation in Parliament. The fuming leaders of smaller Left parties decided to go against the wishes of the big brother. However, the veiled threat of cracks developing in the Left unity and consequences in the next year’s assembly poll in Kerala and West Bengal forced them to join hands publicly. Sonia and Goa politics Former Union minister and a senior Congress leader from Goa has impressed upon party chief Sonia Gandhi not to be misled about the unsavoury developments and the BJP’s machinations of going to any length to remain in power in the state. He also told the party leadership that the situation in Goa should be seen through the prism of a Christian vote bank as the Hindus formed the bulk of 70 per cent of the population. The minority Christian community accounted for only 20-22 per cent of the electorate in Goa. Contributed by Satish Misra, R Suryamurthy, Tripti Nath and Prashant Sood.
|
A man may emerge victor in a thousand battles. In each battle, he may conquer a thousand men, yet he is nothing before the man who has conquered himself. That is the greatest victory of all. — The Buddha Great is His will and indescribable are the ways of its working. — Guru Nanak Beware of the passionate tears in a women’s eye. They can arouse a mighty surge in the most timid of men. And in the valorous, a burning thirst for gory revenge. — The Mahabharata The endless number of ways we adopt to know him are of no avail; all our wisdom does not carry us far; it leaves us in the dark. — Guru Nanak Our life of contemplation, simply put, is to realise God’s constant presence and his tender love for us in the least little things of life. — Mother Teresa There are many who feel that people are different because their values differ from each other. It is not the values but their natures that are responsible for differences in behaviour. Their natures make them look up on the world differently. — The
Bhagavadgita  |
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Mailbag | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
