 |
|
Third front — a
non-starter Strike as a
blackmail |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Iraq gets its PM But government formation a tough task Despite the efforts to avoid voting for the appointment of Iraq’s first full-fledged Prime Minister, the dominant alliance in the 275-member parliament, the United Iraqi Alliance (128 members), had to go in for such an exercise on Sunday. Under the Iraqi constitution, the choice of the biggest bloc of MPs will be the deciding factor for the top slot in the government.
Politics in a state
of flux
Plum-topped
Valentine
India must
modernise its armed forces Today’s films:
Style over substance Delhi
Durbar
|
|
Strike as a blackmail There
seems to be no end to the woes of air passengers in the country. They pay hefty fare for a smooth, comfortable and fast journey. But what do they get in return? There is chaos in almost all the airports in the country today because of the irresponsible attitude of some of the staff. Close on the heels of the strike by the staff of the Airport Authority of India in protest against the modernisation of airports, the pilots of Air Sahara, India’s third largest airline, have now struck work. The pilots’ strike, which has entered third day today, has been causing immense hardship to passengers. The situation in the airports is likely to worsen following the pilots’ decision on Monday to intensify their strike. The Sahara pilots have no right to go on strike in protest against the Jet-Sahara deal. It is simply not their business to interfere on an issue of this kind and paralyse the flight operations. For it is the people who are ultimately put to great inconvenience. Air Sahara pilots may have apprehensions over their job prospects in terms of seniority and salary structure vis-à-vis Jet Airways pilots after the merger comes in to effect. However, the pilots could well address such fears through normal channels rather than refusing to fly, paralysing the flight operations and causing immense inconvenience to people. Today, strike has ceased to be a legitimate right or weapon of any section of society for redressal of grievances. More important, the Supreme Court has ruled that no section has the right to go on strike and hold the country to ransom. There is no reason for Air Sahara pilots to protest because the management has repeatedly assured them that the $500-million Jet-Sahara merger, which is expected to operationalise in a couple of months after regulatory approvals, would not cost the pilots, technical personnel or cabin crew their jobs. Sahara has also promised to absorb all ground and commercial staff whom Jet Airways declines to hire. Consequently, the pilots would do well to call off their strike immediately and restore normal flight operations. The public has no sympathy for them. |
|
Iraq gets its PM Despite
the efforts to avoid voting for the appointment of Iraq’s first full-fledged Prime Minister, the dominant alliance in the 275-member parliament, the United Iraqi Alliance (128 members), had to go in for such an exercise on Sunday. Under the Iraqi constitution, the choice of the biggest bloc of MPs will be the deciding factor for the top slot in the government. The incumbent Prime Minister, Mr Ibrahim Al-Jaafri of the Al-Dawa Party, emerged as the winner, though with a just one vote. He has a poor record as the interim Prime Minister for eight months. What is believed to have tilted the balance in his favour is the fact that he is the favourite of popular religious leader Muqtada Al-Sadr, who led revolts against US troops in the Shia-majority areas. The vote for Mr Jaafri amounts to crossing the first hurdle after the December 15 elections. There is another almost equally difficult hurdle — the formation of the government. Mr Jaafri faces an immediate challenge from the Kurdish bloc, which has 53 seats in the House. Bloc-wise, the Kurds are in the third place after the Sunnis, but they have one advantage. The current Iraq President, Mr Jalal Talabani, is a Kurd, who has declared that his bloc will refuse to be a part of the government unless Mr Jaafri includes in his ministry former Prime Minister Iyad Alawi of the Iraqi National List. Accepting the demand will not be easy for Mr Jaafri as most senior Shia leaders are opposed to giving any major role to Mr Alawi, who, like Mr Talabani, is considered intolerably pro-US. Thus, the government formation may take as much time as has been spent on the search for a Prime Minister. It is not difficult to believe that the Jaafri government will be guided considerably by Iraq’s Shia clergy, which in turn can be influenced by Iran. The US, which obviously has a high stake in Iraq, cannot tolerate any Iranian meddling in the affairs in Baghdad. Running a government in such a situation, with the insurgency showing no signs of abatement, will not be an easy task for the new Prime Minister. |
|
Committee — a group of men who individually can do nothing but as a group decide that nothing can be done.
— Fred Allen |
Politics in a state of flux
The
prevailing political turbulence in the country can be ascribed to many factors: the string of state assembly elections starting with West Bengal, Mr Deve Gowda’s dubious role in his son’s collective defection to the Bharatiya Janata Party by deserting the Congress in Karnataka, the Marxists’ unease over the Congress-led coalition government’s foreign and economic policies and the floating yet again of the mirage of a Third Front. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government is facing its mid-life crisis. And the Congress is worrying that if others succeed in nibbling away at the party’s governments in the states, its position at the Centre will be inevitably affected. Besides, there seems little short-term prospect of the Congress making a mark in the heartland states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. It would be foolish to exaggerate the significance of the CPM’s unhappiness with the Central Government or the prospect of a non-Congress non-BJP Third Front, but the level of unhappiness Mr Prakash Karat is exuding is new. While the last thing the Marxists want is to set in train the return to power of the BJP, they seem to feel they are losing out in the bargain to keep the Manmohan Singh government afloat and are in a mood to demand their pound of flesh. The Congress has a problem on its hands, but so does the CPM. The nuanced approach of Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee to privatisation in West Bengal sits ill with the central Marxist leaders’ rhetoric over the Centre’s economic policies. Perhaps they went overboard in objecting to the privatisation of the Delhi and Mumbai airports because they underrated the government’s resolve to persevere and misjudged the public mood. In an era of catapulting air services, these airports are totally inadequate in coping with the traffic and the alternative offered was woefully short. Foreign policy however, poses a host of complex issues because in a fast changing world, equations are altering and the new relationship on offer by the United States poses opportunities and challenges. Differences between the Marxists and the Central Government have crystallised on two issues: the July 18 agreement between India and the US and how India should conduct itself in the aggressive Western diplomacy towards Iran’s nuclear ambitions. There is a great measure of sympathy in the country over Marxist concerns on the nature of the proposed agreement on nuclear cooperation. The nuclear establishment is clearly against the emerging scenario. There are deeply felt concerns that making over key nuclear reactors to the civilian sector subject to intrusive international inspections would impair the country’s military capability and the doctrine of minimal deterrence. There is also the weighty argument of India losing its most prized asset: the ability to make independent decisions in international affairs. The Marxists are on a more slippery slope on Iran and how India should vote if more stringent action is demanded in the next meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna early next month. They can hardly expect the Prime Minister publicly to promise to vote in a particular way in a highly sensitive debate. The non-aligned vote is, in any case, split. Philosophically, of course, the Marxists’ concern is tied with the feeling that New Delhi might vote against Iran under American pressure. How far the Marxists will choose to go in the coordinating committee meetings and in parliamentary debates remains to be seen but they will shop short of endangering the government. In an effort to pile up pressure on the coalition, they have been seeking the support of the Samajwadi Party of UP and of the Telugu Desam of Andhra. Being out of power in the state, Chandrababu Naidu is a natural opponent of the Congress and Mr Mulayam Singh has is own litany of complaints against the Congress. The prospect of a new Third Front keeping out the Congress and the BJP is as distant as ever. The Telugu Desam, by its name and ethos, is a one-state party willing to align with any non-Congress dispensation at the Centre as and when it wins power. Mr Mulayam Singh, in essence, remains a one-state leader as well employing the Iran issue to cement his equation with Muslim supporters. As for the party’s preference for old-style non-alignment, its election manifesto gives no indication of forward thinking beyond clichés. A marriage of convenience is always possible in Indian politics, as the BJP’s motley collection of parties under the banner of the National Democratic Alliance or the more recent Janata Dal (S)’s marriage with the BJP indicate. But the Marxists or the Communist Party of India do not provide the overarching frame to attract other parties. The regional parties are parochial in nature, usually presided over by leaders with large egos and cannot build a viable ruling dispensation at the Centre with the two communist parties, largely confined as they are to three states of the country. Given their own problems, the Marxists do not have the suppleness to become part of a coalition with a regional party in a state. Kerala, with its caste- and religion-based atomised polity, is in a class of its own. The BJP’s feat in achieving power in a southern state for the first time in a coalition with the JD (S) represents a warning to the communists as it does to the Congress. Were it not for the internal upheaval the BJP is experiencing, it would represent a greater danger. Mr Rajnath Singh’s nomination to the party presidency is an indication of the its priorities and reports of unprincipled alliances in Uttar Pradesh to attain power, apparently encouraged by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, are further proof of the BJP’s concentration on the state. The success of the party’s efforts is doubtful, with second rung leaders snapping at Mr Rajnath Singh’s heels. Moreover, the party has still to recover from the trauma of losing power at the Centre. Both Dr Manmohan Singh and Ms Sonia Gandhi have to meet the challengers of a more difficult political environment in staying afloat. True to her record in the parliamentary elections, she is already on the road in campaigning for the Assam assembly election. But the Prime Minister will need a high degree of astuteness to cope with the problem of communist unhappiness and contracting Congress influence in the
states.
|
Plum-topped Valentine Whenever
I get the blues — my usual “pick-me-up” is to pick up a P.G. Wodehosuse favourite; chuckle away the clouds and rediscover the rainbows. Thank you Plum. You are my perennial Valentine. Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, popularly known as ‘Plum’, was born in 1881 and died on Valentine’s Day in 1975. As the greatest ribtickler for generations, he was humourist par excellence. Wodehouse had a range of endearing, unforgettable character, who would often get into messy, romantic comic situations—to be generally bailed out by Jeeves, the gentleman’s gentleman. The suave butler whose super wit, intellect combined with his secret “pick-me-ups” for the “mornings-after” hangovers, is the stuff literary landmarks are made of. The main protagonist, Bertie Wooster, keeps falling in and out of love with the frequency of changing English weather. And the course of love ranges from sunshine to dark clouds; and from rainbows to dank showers! Among his objects of romantic daliences are young ladies of various hues and colours—including dim wits—entangling him into escapades involving stealing “cow creamers” to win their hearts. Humour relieves tensions. Abraham Lincoln said: “When I lose my power to laugh, my heart will break.” One way to ensure that your Valentine never breaks her heart is to gift a Wodehouse book. Most of his books are peopled by their comic presence; and yet never go stale. Just to name a few: Freddie Threepwood is the vice-president of Donaldson’s Dog Joy Biscuits, Bingo Little edits Wee Tots, a popular journal for children. And, of course, the inimitable Bertie Wooster. Then there is the absent-minded Lord Elmsworth in his Blandings Castle with all-time passion and obsession with his pet pig, and generally harried by his sisters. One of my most favourite characters and the situational comedy built up around him is Gussie Fink Nottle. Caught in an irretrievable situation — asked to preside over the village Grammar School’s annual function — he makes the most hilarious speech ever read, braced by stiff doses of orange juice laced with gin, pumped in by Bertie and Jeeves to calm his quivering nerves. Bertie Wooster’s overbearing aunts and their descriptions are legendary in their own right — and often remind me of my own big sisters! Here is a sampling: “There came from without the hoof-beats of a galloping relative, and aunt Agatha whizzed in.” Although one may call Wodeshouse irreverent, malice is one attribute never seen in his old-world charm of making you laugh. “His humour and mirth is bull’s eye, but the bull is not even scratched.” He died at the ripe age of 93 on St. Valentine’s Day. Must be busy winning hearts in heaven — and making them
chuckle! |
India must modernise
its armed forces India
is doing well economically. However, few realise that India is passing through a difficult period from the security point of view. China is giving weapon systems to Myanmar, Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan. It is indirectly making these countries bolder in their actions against India. Pakistan is continuing its terrorist activities not only in Jammu and Kashmir but is spreading them right across India, from Kashmir to Bangalore. Terrorism is also increasing in the North East. Bangladesh has allowed ISI and other terrorist organisations to open their terrorist camps in its country. Its government not only refuses to sell its gas to India but will not allow a gas pipeline from Myanmar to pass through Bangladesh to reach India. No wonder, some observers say that 1971 Bangladesh war was a brilliant success tactically when Indian forces captured nearly one lakh Pak prisoners. But it seems to have failed to look after India’s strategic interests. While some Indians talk about demilitarisation of the Siachin Glacier, the Pakistan Prime Minister has suggested demilitarisation of Jammu and Kashmir, both sides withdrawing their forces and leaving this state at the mercy of the Pak-supported terrorists. General Musharraf has modified his Prime Minister’s statement. He wants India to withdraw troops from Srinagar, Kupwara and Baramula. Pakistan would then join India to ensure that no incidence of terrorism takes place. Pakistan first trains and later inducts those terrorists to Jammu and Kashmir. Now it is using terrorism to force India to withdraw from these towns to start with. Such views of Pak leaders throw ample light on the coming events, for which Indian leaders and its armed forces should be ready. The situation is pregnant with all sorts of possibilities. The best way to deal with the developing situation is to have strong, well organised and equipped armed forces along with economic development. To begin with, let us improve our higher defence organisation. When India obtained independence in 1947, the Defence Ministry had both military and civilian officers. It was only after 1947 that the Ministry’s composition was completely changed and the bureaucrats took over the Defence Ministry for good. This situation needs to be changed. Military officers should man the Ministry to make it more effective. At present, bureaucrats from various states or other Central ministries are posted to the Defence Ministry. Overnight they become defence experts. Why are the military officers debarred from the Defence Ministry? When the British left in 1947, the British C-in-C used to look after the Army, Navy and Air Force. After independence, this system was changed. This system was the precursor of the Chief of Defence Staff system as in the UK, the US and other advanced countries in Europe. If adopted by India, the CDS system would help all the three Services work in a more coordinated manner. India needs to improve its system of purchasing weapon systems from other countries, as it is in no position to develop modern weapon systems as yet. Initially, Indian military officers from the Services concerned used to go to foreign countries to buy the weapon systems which will then be evaluated in India after trials. Then the weapon system considered appropriate would be recommended to the Defence Ministry for its decision. Later, the bureaucrats started becoming heads of the delegations, which were sent out to select various weapon systems. Now the Ministers head the delegations to purchase the various weapon systems. Some observers feel that it is due to the kickbacks, as was the case with the famous Bofors case. This perhaps explains the reason why India’s development of weapon systems is not given the urgency it deserves by the agencies concerned. Years ago, India’s Defence Minister had stated that India would buy new weapon systems only if the country concerned is willing to sell the technology also. Somehow, this thoughtful decision was forgotten for one reason or other. The defence analysts have been critical of the development of weapon systems in India. After over 25 years of development and expenditure of hundreds of crores, our famous battle tank ‘Arjun’ is not found fit enough to be inducted into the army. Our experts recommend that we purchase technology from Russia of T90 tanks and then manufacture them in India. Similar problems have faced other Services in the development of fighter aircraft and nuclear submarine also, even though lot of money and time has been spent on their developments. When we can produce nuclear weapons, space rockets and missiles, why can’t we produce other weapon systems also? This argument is logical. But then, the Atomic Energy Commission responsible for nuclear weapons and the Indian Space Research Organisation responsible for space rockets, are not the departments which are under the Defence Ministry and its bureaucrats. Capable scientists and engineers run these organisations. The development of weapon systems is under the direct control of the Defence Ministry’s bureaucrats. The Department of Defence Production is like any other department of GOI, with a public sector approach. Engineers, technologists, scientists who join the department may not be of the required standard, as their salaries are low and promotions are on the basis of service and seniority. So analysts feel that we should associate private sector in the development of various weapon systems. The unnecessary security considerations need to be revised. After all, when we purchase various weapon systems from the US, the UK or France, these have been developed by their private industries only. Development of latest weapon systems, reorganisation of the Defence Ministry and introduction of the Chief of Defence Staff system will have to be followed up with a sense of urgency. |
|
Today’s films: Style over
substance Do
Dus, Kaante,
Boom, Ek Ajnabee, Chocolate, James, Zinda, Ek Khiladi Ek Hasina, Elaan and
numerous other films have anything in common? Yes, they share an exasperating
trend in Bollywood films: style over substance. From painstakingly idiomatic
scripts, these films are infatuated with the idea of style at the expense of
everything else. "Today the stress is more on the look than the content
of the movies," said the veteran actor Shashi Kapoor in a recent
interview. He says, "films have become more concerned with visual
technique than with art or insight or surprise." These films often
begin with an aerial tour of a nowhere metropolis though it is made clear to
the viewer that it is not an Indian visage. The heroes wear designer suits
(while their women wear next to nothing), ride in limousines and yield
numerous lethal weapons. With the dominance of digital special effects, the
films present settings and spectacles every bit as synthetic as their recycled
characters and situations. The martial arts dynamics, a khichri of
borrowed moves from films like The Matrix, Crouching Tiger and
Hidden Dragon, are omnipresent (a staple of every film is the flying
slow-motion trick in a fight scene), lightning-fast virtual scene changes
(thanks to the savvy techno-cinematography) and a fury of special-effects
tornado. The end product is muffled airless quality of movies loaded with
computer-generated imagery meant more to evoke a postcard: pretty but little
to say. These films are a mish-mash of classic and futuristic-tech film noir
borrowed from Hollywood. Film noirs, as a genre, historically represented
melancholy, alienation, bleakness, pessimism, guilt, desperation and paranoia
of heroes (or anti-heroes). The protagonists were often corrupt characters and
villains such as conflicted cops, gangsters, crooks, petty criminals and
murderers. They led morally ambiguous lives of the gloomy underworld laden
with violent crime. Distinctively, they were cynical, brooding, disillusioned
and insecure loners (usually men), struggling to survive — and in the end,
ultimately losing. While Orsen Wells’ 1958 classic, A Touch of Evil,
gave us the visual vocabulary for modern-day film noirs, it was the 1979 film,
The Alien, that set the stage for films like Total Recall, Johnny
Mnemonic, Strange Days, Virtuosity, Gattaca, eXistenZ,
The Matrix and Steven Spielberg’s cyber-noirish action film Minority
Report. All these films are not necessarily bad models to emulate, but the
imitations of Bollywood, skillful though it may be, are so self-congratulatory
that there is very little to enjoy, and even less to admire. Directors like
Raj Kapoor, Guru Dutt or Bimal Roy did not have computer animations or
nonlinear digital editing stations. What they did have was a plethora of
well-scripted and profound stories to tell often with understated simplicity
and restraint. In the films that come to our multiplexes today, there is
nothing urgent or remotely subtle with their pastiche of styles. However,
they know how cool a guy looks, or thinks he does, walking down the streets. |
|
Delhi Durbar New Union Minister of State for Commerce Jairam Ramesh is thrilled that he has joined the Manmohan Singh government. He has chosen Rajasekhar, a Dalit IAS officer of the Andhra Pradesh cadre, as his private secretary. He has written to the Chief Secretary of Andhra Pradesh to relieve Rajasekhar who is presently Additional Secretary, Irrigation in Hyderabad. Rajasekhar, an engineer, is MBA from IIM, Ahmedabad. Jairam Ramesh wants one more AP cadre IAS officer as joint secretary to coordinate matters with the Union Government pertaining to the state. Ramesh is a Rajya Sabha MP from Andhra Pradesh. The Minister has been making waves for forking out money every evening for snacks and tea for the staff and visitors. After all, there is nothing called a free lunch. He is also not using the official vehicle with the red light or lal batti either in New Delhi or during his visits to the states. Virbhadra’s
rivals happy The recent Union Cabinet reshuffle brought some cheer to the group in the Himachal PCC that does not see eye to eye with Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh. While Anand Sharma was made Union Minister of State for External Affairs, Ms Ambika Soni is unlikely to remain general secretary in charge of Himachal Pradesh as she is now Union Tourism Minister. Ms Soni was seen as a supporter of the Chief Minister by the rival group in the state Congress. Fingers are now crossed over the Congress high command’s choice for the Rajya Sabha seat for which election is due next month. With PCC chief Viplove Thakur seen as a contender for the seat, the Chief Minister would have some thinking to do. Jaswant cleverer Former Union Finance Minister and senior BJP leader Jaswant Singh has proved that when it comes to handling “inner party dynamism”, he is not a novice. He carefully skirted the booby trap by skipping a visit to Jinnah’s mausoleum in Karachi during his six-day visit to Pakistan as part of a pilgrimage even though he had pledged a visit. Party insiders feel that it was a clever move as the RSS could have taken a very dim view of his visit to Jinnah’s mausoleum given the controversy that Mr L.K. Advani triggered at the same spot last year. Session likely
to be stormy With elections in West Bengal and Kerala round the corner, the Communists have adopted an aggressive posture against the policies of the UPA government. The ensuing Budget session of Parliament is expected to witness uproar with the Left parties firing salvos to appease their constituency. If the elections for the five state assemblies were announced, the rollback, if any, by the Finance Minister would be a violation of the Election Commission’s Model Code of Conduct. That might throw up a piquant situation for the UPA government. Contributed by Prashant Sood, S. Satyanarayanan, R. Suryamurthy and Smriti Kak Ramachandran |
|
From the pages of Fear not
Let no one fear that in declining in any way to co-operate with a purely British and Parliamentary Commission India will run any risk whatever. Such a Commission may, if and when it is boycotted by India, do one of two things. It may either go on with its work regardless of the boycott, confining its inquiry to British and official witnesses; or it may give it up in despair. The latter would be the only right thing for it to do, for a Commission of inquiry into Indian reforms, which was boycotted by India herself, would have no moral right to exist and its recommendations would carry no weight in any quarter. But whichever of the two is the case, India will eventually lose nothing and gain. If the Commission does go on with its work in spite of Indian non-co-operation, it will have in the very nature of things to find out the Indian side of the case either from the British and official witnesses. If the Commission gives up its task, as it ought to do, the British Government will have no choice but either to take back the announcement of 1917 and return to the Minto-Morley Reforms, or send out another and a differently constituted Commission. |
“Indeed, on the contrary, you will know”. Those who are engrossed in the things of the world do not prepare for the transition to death; they do not register the ultimate unreality of these things. When they are actually dying, however, unlike now they will really know that their worldly strivings diverted their attention form a matter even more. — Islam ... Do your work, but surrender the result to God. — Ramakrishna If you do not believe that all beings arise from the same God, the same fountain head; then you are far from the Truth. When you realise this, you will begin to love all equally. You
will have seen the mighty Truth. — Bhagvad Gita The passage of life is not always smooth. Sometimes everything works out well. At others, everything appears to go wrong. He who can face both with indifference is the self-realised one. He does not allow one to fill him with joy and the others with misery. — Sanatana Dharma |
| 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 | |
