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The day after Politics of appeasement |
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A flood of woes
Left in a blind lane
Oh Calcutta
Dateline London Where teachers
carry arms in class From Pakistan
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The day after TUESDAY’S terrorist bid to desecrate the shrine at Ayodhya and thereby create a communal conflagration is a grim reminder of the threat terrorists pose to national security. The nation is grateful to the CRPF jawans who killed them in their tracks before they could reach the makeshift temple. A holistic view of the incident suggests that there was no apparent failure on the part of the security agencies guarding the disputed structure. Nonetheless, it is a warning that the spectre of terrorism still haunts the country and it should be dealt with as sternly as possible. In a civilized and plural society like India’s the only conceivable place for terrorists is behind bars. Yet, the growing number of terrorist incidents reported from Jammu and Kashmir, Delhi and the Northeast shows that there has been a spurt in terrorist activities. In Punjab also there are remnants of terrorism which hopefully are being weeded out. The nation was one in condemning the outrage at Ayodhya, which could also have been aimed at sabotaging the India-Pakistan peace process. The best response to the terrorist challenge is to let them know that the people, irrespective of their political and religious differences, are united in meeting it. That is how the people responded when the terrorists attacked Parliament and Gujarat’s Akshardham temple. Dissension in their ranks is bound to be lapped up by the militants. Seen against this backdrop, any attempt to derive political advantage from the incident is tantamount to playing into their hands. It would have been more appropriate if the BJP had refrained from giving a call for nationwide protest against the attack. Such protests can go out of hand. Also, political parties should take care to avoid the blame game, which only complicates the situation The attack on the Ayodhya complex is also a reminder that a bunch of terrorists, aided and abetted by foreign agencies, can bring peace to the precipice. Inquiries are bound to reveal that it too was the handiwork of the Pakistan-trained terrorists who have been uncomfortable ever since the process of normalisation in India-Pakistan relations was started. There are also forces who do not relish the economic progress India has achieved in the recent past. They think that creating communal disturbances and instability is the best way to retard its progress. Needless to say, the nation has to stand united to face this challenge. |
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Politics of appeasement Captain Amarinder Singh’s government seems determined to provide free electricity supply to the farm sector disregarding objections of the Prime Minister and the Planning Commission. The Chief Minister had thrown enough hints on the subject in the recent weeks. Now his Power Minister, Mr Lal Singh, has come out with the likely date, August 15, when the Chief Minister will make a formal announcement. As the Assembly elections draw nearer, the Congress leadership is looking at various populist options — free power to farmers being one of them. The Congress Chief Minister in Haryana has also revived the abominable practice of waiving power dues, causing a Rs 1,600 crore loss to the exchequer. It is strange politics of populism pursued by governments which otherwise profess to be pro-reform, irrespective of who is to pay for their power bills. The Congress is set to repeat the blunder the Parkash Singh Badal government had committed by granting unmetred power supply to the farm sector. Despite this largesse the Akalis lost the last Assembly elections.The only departure the Congress may make is to confine free power to farmers owning five acres or less. The Badal regime left the Treasury bankrupt. It did not compensate the Punjab State Electricity Board for its political giveaway. This left the Punjab State Electricity Board financially ruined. Mr Lal Singh is creating the impression that the board’s finances have improved. If it were so, why did the government double the electricity duty and also raise the power tariffs steeply for the industrial and domestic consumers? The state buys power at Rs 6 per unit and gives away to farmers at 57 paise per unit. Even this meagre rate is sought to be waived. So much is the Captain’s concern for public money. It is true small farmers need help and should be given in some other form, than free power which only adds to their problems. Because of its scarcity and misuse, power supply becomes erratic.
Unscheduled cuts irritate consumers, including farmers. Surveys show farmers are ready to pay even more provided the supply is sufficient and regular. Free power leads to over-exploitation of underground water, which is already at alarmingly low levels. It is well known that whatever comes free is often misused. The concession may not get the Captain votes even in next year’s election. He can check it with Mr Badal whose ill-advised power-for-votes policy failed to return him to power. |
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A flood of woes ANY administration would have struggled to cope with heavy floods that have wreaked havoc in Gujarat, but disaster preparedness has been shown to be inadequate in the state. Once towns and villages have been inundated or marooned, roads and bridges washed away, and trains stranded in a sea of water, the task of evacuating people and reaching food and medical care to the affected is a slow, arduous task. As is often in such cases, relief efforts are stymied by the bad weather that caused the disaster in the first place. No compensation is adequate for the scores of human lives lost, and the economic losses will take a long time to make up. Considering how disaster prone the state is, there has been a surprising lack of long-term planning and preparedness. It took a Bhuj earthquake before the lesson of how earthquake resistant building construction can save lives was learned. One is still not sure if the lesson has been learnt well. A commitment to make drainage systems in cities and towns prone to flooding, like Vadodara, Padra and Karjan, more efficient is simple but is not implemented. Experts have generated huge quantities of data and ideas of how to monitor and mitigate flood-related problems, with very little being translated into action at the ground level. With over 54 dams overflowing in the region, the floods have brought the Sardar Sarovar dam on the Narmada again into the spotlight. Dam officials are bemoaning the fact that litigation and controversy has curtailed the height of the dam, resulting in huge quantities of precious water just flowing away into the sea. Even the sanctioned height of the dam has not been built, due to delay in resettling people. While it is clear that rehabilitation should indeed be a priority, the issue highlights the woeful lack of holistic developmental planning that takes into account all relevant factors over an extended time frame. Nature has a way of exposing human frailties. |
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There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. — Oscar Wilde |
Left in a blind lane AS the latest tantrums of the communists on the BHEL disinvestment show, it may be slowly dawning on them that they are caught in a trap. They can neither leave the Congress-led coalition nor accept it whole-heartedly since it is a “bourgeois” formation which doesn’t regard capitalism as an intrinsic evil. The first step will facilitate the BJP’s return while the second will undermine the Left’s ideological credibility. The communist parties were apparently unprepared for this dilemma. Yet, they virtually sleep-walked into this situation because of the twists and turns in Indian politics in the 1990s. After a lifetime in the anti-Congress camp, except for the period between 1970 and 1977 when the CPI sided with the Congress, the overwhelming majority of the communists could not conceive of a time when they would prop up a Congress government at the Centre. Nor could they have believed that this stance would be unavoidable because of the sudden growth in the influence of the extreme right-wing forces represented by the BJP. The Left’s problems have been compounded by the fact that although the BJP has suffered an electoral setback and appears in something of a disarray at the moment, it cannot be denied that the party and the parivar associated with it remain a potent force, with a not inconsiderable vote bank comprising communal-minded Hindus in the mofussil trading communities and sections of the middle class. Any chink, therefore, in the electoral armour of the “secular” camp cannot but boost the BJP’s prospects. It is a possibility for which the Left doesn’t want to be held responsible if only because it is aware that a communal tide, reinforced by an unscrupulous exploitation of “nationalist” sentiments by the BJP, can pose a serious threat not only to the Leftist parties but also to their ideology, which is already tottering after the demise of communism in the former Soviet Union and eastern Europe and its transformation into “market socialism” in China. The communists feel, therefore, that it is imperative for them to act as a bulwark against communalism for their own survival. They may have also taken up this challenge with a greater determination because of the guilty feeling of having inadvertently helped in the BJP’s growth by their own blind anti-Congressism for prolonged periods, the most fateful of which being the time when the Left and the BJP were on the same side of the fence when V.P. Singh was the Prime Minister. It may be partly to pay for these sins of the past that the communists have to go along with the Congress today. In addition, they also know that they are too weak by themselves to check the BJP. Only the Congress can do so, with help from friends. Yet, teaming up with the Congress for political reasons brings the Left directly into conflict with the party on economic grounds. As both the communist leaders and their standard-bearers in the academic world have pointed out, there is little difference between the Congress and the BJP on economic policies. Both pursue what the Left derides as the “neo-liberal” line, which it castigates as pro-rich. But the Left is helpless, for the Congress is aware that no matter how much it rants and raves, the Left will not take the risk of bringing down the government and usher in yet another period of political turmoil beneficial for the BJP. It is possible that the communists had entered the alliance in the belief that the “socialists” in the Congress in the Nehruvian mould will stop the party from pursuing the economic reforms. After all, the defeat of Narasimha Rao in 1996 was ascribed by many Congressmen to the policies which he initiated in 1991 along with Dr Manmohan Singh. The Left may have also believed that Mrs Sonia Gandhi as Prime Minister will be less open to pro-market philosophy and, therefore, tilt the balance in favour of the public sector-dominated economy of the past. But what the communists apparently did not anticipate was that Mrs Sonia Gandhi would let the mantle of Prime Minister fall on none other than Dr Manmohan Singh. They also probably did not expect that far from curbing his natural instincts as a reformer, the Prime Minister will determinedly pursue the pro-market course, with the help of Finance Minister P. Chidambaram (who was even more of a bete noire for the Left than Dr Manmohan Singh) and Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, who was described as a “World Bank man” by Mr Jyoti Basu. But these are not the only things that have gone wrong for the Left. What has made its task of criticising economic reforms even more difficult is the line pursued by its own Chief Minister in West Bengal, Mr Buddhadev Bhattacharjee, who has made no secret of his determination to woo domestic and foreign investors to his economically moribund state and privatising loss-making public sector units. So, every time the communists in New Delhi rail against the sell-out to capitalists, the example of what is happening in the state run by them is cited by their opponents to embarrass them. As the communists struggle to resolve these contradictions, what is obvious is that much of their problems have sprung from their inability to come to terms with the changing political and economic realities. For one, their failure to spread beyond their base (which is now mainly confined to West Bengal because Kerala slips in and out of their grasp) means that their potential for growth has dried up. Instead, their place has been taken by regional and casteist parties, mainly in the Hindi heartland. For another, while parties like the Congress and the BJP have been trying to reinvent themselves, successfully or otherwise, the Left has remained stuck in their old ideological grooves which leave little scope for political manoeuvres. The Congress, for instance, has had the courage and the foresight to leave its Nehruvian past behind to embrace the market forces (as Bhattacharjee is also trying to do) and the BJP has realised that its anti-minority image is a disadvantage although its attempts to shed it haven’t been successful obviously because of its and the parivar’s long history as a Muslim-baiter. The Left, on the other hand, continues to believe — to quote Karl Popper, author of the 1945 classic, “The Open Society and Its Enemies” — that “capitalism was an evil form of society; it had to end, it had to be overthrown by the communists. That was bound to happen ….” To be fair, the Maoists in Bihar, Andhra Pradesh and elsewhere in India, as also in Nepal, are acting in accordance with this “scientific” prognosis. But the other communists, who are a part of the open society in India, have been reduced to making a spectacle of themselves by opposing virtually every move by the government - whether disinvestment or the strengthening of ties with the US and Israel - and yet have no option but to support it. Otherwise, they fear that India would move further to the right not only in economic matters but also in terms of communal politics, with its threat of a majoritarian and revivalist agenda. |
Oh Calcutta
Watching
Parineeta, the currently raved about period film, was a journey down memory lane. It was the early 60s and I was a gawky, smalltown high school boy. That’s when the invitation from my flamboyant brother-in-law, an executive with an American company in Calcutta, came to spend the winter vacations with him. Our first evening out in “Cal” was to the fabled Park Street. Destination: Trincas, the legendary night club. My dapper brother-in-law was joined by his spirited friend Shombu Maitra — a confirmed bachelor and a gentleman of leisure. As the waiter came to take orders for the aperitifs, I shyly mumbled for a coke. “Oh come on, all gentlemen drink and smoke”. And that settled the issue. The heady mix of the first drink, the sultry crooner Eve’s come-hither looks and her husky voice literally turned my head. The razzmatazz Moulin Rouge number in Parineeta picturised on Rekha brought back the regalia and ambience of Trinca nights. However, the piece de resistance of the night was a singer introduced with great flourish as the “Elvis of Cal” who in his black leather jacket and fluffy puff banged away at the piano belting out Jailhouse Rock, that sounded more like the great singer’s LP played with bad scratches. Besides Trincas, the other evening spots were the Skyroom where Usha Iyer (now Uthup), then a struggling entertainer, used to mesmerise with her baritone voice. Then there were the memorable outings to Flury’s for cakes and pastries, the races where a la Shekhar, the high society spent more time at the bar than with the horses. As Christmas time came nearer it was just one big round of parties from one place to another, usually culminating for breakfast at the Dum Dum airport in the wee hours of the morning. But the highlight of my “winter of 64” was the fabulous party thrown for the cricket teams of India and the West Indies in town for a Test match. The guest list besides the cricketers comprised boxwallahs, the fading royals, Brits who had stayed on and the glamorous jet-set of a foreign airline. While the names of other famous cricketers have become blurred in memory, I can never forget the breathtaking beautiful companion of Farukh Engineer, the swashbuckling, wicketkeeper of the Indian side. I still remember her black lace dress, a red rose in her silken hair and the magical fragrance of some exquisite perfume. All evening I eyed her, but was too nervous to get any nearer. Finally, I took a deep swig of my drink and blurted loudly: “May I have a dance?” she smiled and let the small town lad have a tall tale of Cal to tell. Where are you, the lady of my coming of age.
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Dateline London by K.N. Malik THERE will be no free lunch for India when it joins, for the first time ever, the rich nations’ club called G-8 at Gleneagles in Scotland on July 7. It will be pressed to do more on Kyoto Protocol aimed at reducing greenhouse emissions and provide duty-free access to African produce. As a country desperately wanting to get a permanent seat in the UN Security Council, though sans veto power, India will require all the skills to handle the pressure. India is among the four newly emerging economies which have been invited to the summit to be hosted by the UK. The others are: China, Brazil and South Africa. Political observers believe the pressure will be much greater on China, which is considered a bigger economy, posing greater trade and strategic challenges to the developed Western countries, especially, the USA. However, China already has a UNSC permanent seat. .Economically also it is miles ahead of India. Multinational western businesses exposure in China is much greater than in India. To that extent, it will be easier for China to fend its position. Kyoto Protocol was negotiated and signed in accordance with the principles of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which was endorsed by the US but later repudiated by the present administration. Under that agreement all member countries, including developing countries, were required to cut greenhouse emissions and report to the UN about the progress made. It, however, required the developed countries such as the US to take a lead in limiting greenhouse emissions. The developed world, with only 25 per cent of the world’s population, contributes 75 per cent of the accumulated greenhouse gas pollution, the US being the single largest polluter. The US, which does not accepts the scientific theory about human beings being the major polluters, did not sign Kyoto Protocol. The US President has said it is unfair to ask the US to sign the protocol when the world’s two foremost emerging economies have been exempted from the protocol. India is surprised at this comparison. It’s per capita income is extremely low at about $1 a day and, on an average, a person in India consumes as much energy in a year as an American does in a fortnight. In any case, developing countries such as India, China, Brazil and Mexico have reduced greenhouse gas emissions since 1997 through more efficient management of transport, energy and other environmental policies, while carbon dioxide emissions have increased in the USA during this period. India is in favour of further reducing these emissions. It will, however, depend on the transfer of more efficient, newer environmental friendly technologies by the developed world, especially the US, to the developing countries. These developed countries, directly or through multinational agencies, will also have to foot the bill for developing these new technologies. As for as trade concessions to Africa are concerned, it will not be fair to expect India to open its markets to African goods when India itself remains largely an agricultural country. Pitching one poor country against another, while the rich countries continue to heavily subsidise their farmers and industry cannot be called a just and fair trade. In any case both on environment as well as trade, India will not negotiate within thin the framework of G8, when it is already committed to the multilaterally negotiated Kyoto Protocol and the Doha round. India, China, Brazil and South Africa are not members of G8. No one should expect these countries to pledge at the summit any thing more than what they have already agreed to. During his brief visit to Britain, the Indian Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, will have some bilateral meetings with the British Prime Minister and his senior colleagues, interact with the friends of India in the British Parliament and with the Indian community in Britain. Dr. Singh will also receive an honorary degree from Oxford University. For Britain, India is an important investor. Though India has only recently opened up, it is the largest investor in the UK among the emerging markets. |
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Where teachers carry arms
in class School teachers in Thailand's violent southern border provinces will be Bangkok granted them special arms permits yesterday. The government will supply flak jackets and second-hand guns to teachers who work in government -run schools, which have become a popular soft target for drive-by shootings and bombers. Scores of rural schools also have been set alight by arsonists, who view them as a symbol of the central government. At least a dozen Thai teachers at state-run schools have been assassinated since a dormant separatist movement erupted eighteen months ago along the border with Malaysia, where Muslims outnumber Buddhists 4:1. The slain teachers included both Buddhists and Muslims, and many had been regarded as community leaders in a region of poor fishermen and rubber-tappers. Already 2,000 southern teachers have petitioned for pistol permits, and many are honing their shooting skills after school at military firing ranges which train the teachers in shifts of 50. After more than 2,700 teachers requested transfers to safer schools upcountry, and others boycotted classrooms until they can be provided better security, southern schools have had to resort to volunteers as replacements or close. The Thai Education Minister, Adisai Bodharamik, conceded to reporters that many of the 34,500 Buddhist teachers in Narathiwat, Pattani, and Yala provinces are "fearful and demoralised". Added his deputy, Rung Kaewdaeng: "They need guns. This is now a necessity as many people have survived attacks because they shot back at the attackers." Militants have killed or beheaded at least seven people in the past six weeks alone. Since 2004, more than 880 people have been killed and at least 1,500 injured, many by motorcycle gunmen riding pillion. But, despite 18 months of martial laws and curfew, the violence has not abated in this former Malay sultanate. Many residents have come to resent the central government's heavy-handed tactics and its policy of forced assimilation. Tension is palpable. "The insurgents are copying the beheadings from Iraq to scare away the people," Defence Minister Gen. Thammarak Isarangura told reporters in Bangkok. Interior Ministry statistics disclose a growing exodus by the Buddhist minority. In the first six months this year, more than 34,523 Buddhist residents moved north, away from the simmering conflict. Analysts say that no evidence shows foreign Islamists directly instigate the regional violence, which has roots in the 1980s. But if only private Islamic schools remain open, many fear that terror and revenge may soon be on the lesson plan. —
The Independent |
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Bugti opposes Sui plan
QUETTA: Jamhoori Watan Party chief Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti has said that people will retaliate if they are forcibly dislocated from their land and homes in Sui. Speaking to a group of Quetta-based newsmen in Dera Bugti on Tuesday, he said the government was planning to shift the local population from Sui to some other places. “File work is in progress for shifting the local population from Sui,” he said, adding that the board of revenue has been asked to obtain land for the purpose. He said that according to the plan, the people belonging to the Mondrani clan of the Bugti tribe would be shifted to Tilimat area some 12 km off Sui while tribesmen of the Kalpar clan would be shifted to the “Go” area in the north of Sui township. He said that the provincial board of revenue had been directed to get around 2,300 acres of land in those areas on nominal rates. — Dawn Private colleges better
KARACHI: In the last couple of years, private institutions have held sway over the public institutes in generating a better standard of education and an environment-friendly crowd, as against government institutes that have marched ahead in the form of political activism and on the doctrine of violence. The establishment of private colleges has left deep imprints on the standard of government institutions. These private colleges are charging very high fees and provide the facility of modern technology to the students like computers and projectors. Most of these institutes hire foreign-qualified teachers on heavy remuneration. Many claim that these teachers play a very important role in the rise of the reputation of the private institutions. Unfortunately, education in the private sector is far from the access of the ordinary people. Mostly only those people get admissions in private institutes that are able to afford the heavy fees.
— The Nation
Married woman gang-raped
CHINIOT: Eleven persons kidnapped a married woman from a village, gang-raped, humiliated and tortured her for three consecutive days, suspecting that her auntie had played a role in the elopement of the daughter of the main accused. Fauzia Bibi, a 25-year-old woman of Adda Burjian, was living a happy life with her husband Altaf Hussain and had three children till last month when she was kidnapped. About midnight 11 armed persons came to her house on horses, dragged her out of her bed and took her away. They also thrashed her uncle Nawaz when he resisted them. They took her to a deserted farmhouse on the bank of the river Chenab where they gang-raped her. They tore off her clothes and told her to dance. When she refused, they tortured her. They forcibly poured liquor in her mouth. She cried and begged for mercy, but they did not relent and continued humiliating and persecuting her. They repeated their satanic acts the next day.
— The News |
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From the pages of Pasteur institute in India WE are informed that the movement to establish a Pasteur Institute in the Punjab Himalayas has the countenance of the Punjab Government. To make the movement a success the proper course would be to move the Government of India if it has been finally decided that Pasteur’s remedy against hydrophobia is the real remedy. There is of course nothing to be said against a local movement and if the active assistance of the Local Government can be secured, it should be a success. It is proposed to form a Committee, but communications may be meanwhile addressed to Mr E. Kay Robinson, Civil and Military Gazette, Lahore. The question, however, is not of provincial but universal interest and the initiative should be taken by the Government. There is a tendency to treat every new discovery with suspicion, but the faith in Pasteur’s treatment of hydrophobia is getting stronger and it is time the Government of India gave it a trial. |
The lightning nearly takes away their vision. Every time it sheds light for them, they walk in it; and when it grows dark upon them, they stand still. And if God willed, God could remove their hearing and their seeing: for God has power over all things. — Book of quotations on Islam Happiness is always a by-product. It is probably a matter of temperament, it is something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy, you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your unhappiness. — Book of quotations on Happiness He comes to know about the secrets of life and self. His spirit rises to a higher level and he wins the respect of one and all. He acquires the quintessence of all scriptures. With the true knowledge thus gained his sufferings and sins are wiped out. He obtains happiness and real joy. — Guru Nanak We doubt the existence of God because we cannot see Him. Yet He is there all around us …. in moving and unmoving things, in rocks and in living flesh, in all men and all beasts. — Book of quotations on Hinduism Never allow the enemy’s kin to enter your army. He may pretend devotion to your cause but his heart will his own on the other side when you need him most, he may let you down. — The Mahabharata The immortal cannot be reached by mundane stairways. —The Upanishads  |
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