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Relief for industry No to bullfight |
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Dating the diaspora
Better climate for Indo-Pak ties
Jinxed
Chatterati
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Relief for industry THE Punjab government has announced an almost 90 per cent cut in the development and change-of-land-use charges. The relief will benefit particularly the industrial zones coming up at Amritsar, Jalandhar and Ludhiana and will extend to warehouses, logistics and IT parks. Industry representatives had often complained of high development charges and threatened to move out of the state if the government policy did not change. Some tool-manufacturing units had even approached the Gujarat government for setting up their expansion projects in the manufacturing clusters in that state. This had perhaps rung the alarm bells. The exorbitant land prices and lack of reliable infrastructure in Punjab have added to the industry’s problems. To makes matters worse, the Centre’s grant of a tax holiday to the neighbouring Himachal Pradesh and other hill states has rendered the industry in Punjab and Haryana less competitive and created much bad feeling among the neighbouring states. The recent imposition of an entry tax in Punjab has also hit a section of the industry and there is a move to revive octroi, which was abolished after prolonged protest by the industry. Apart from giving concessions, the government will have to make some policy corrections if it wants industry to flourish. The initial media reports do not indicate how much the fresh relief measures will cost the exchequer. The government, which has adopted a populist approach, is in a tricky situation. On the one hand, its tax collection is poor and the financial condition precarious and on the other, it cannot increase the tax burden on the people and the industry. Coalition politics has its own compulsions. Following pressure from its electoral ally, the BJP, the Akali Dal-led government had to absorb the increased electricity burden imposed on the urban consumers since its own vote bank comprising farmers gets free power. Since agriculture and industry both are sluggish and both need help, the government will have to cut its own extravagance and administrative flab to generate resources. |
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No to bullfight AGREED that bullfights have been going on in Tamil Nadu for centuries. Also agreed that it is the state’s biggest tourist attraction during the Pongal festival, watched by thousands of locals and tourists. Yet, jallikattu is a “sport” involving extreme cruelty fully deserving the ban imposed on it by the Supreme Court. Not only are the animals subjected to torture, men pitting against the bulls also expose themselves to grave risks. Such enthusiastic participants risk their lives for prize money and other articles like bicycles and television sets. In the past, bundles of currency notes were tied to the bulls’ horns, and the villagers used to pounce on the rampaging bulls to take the bundles in their possession. Every year, many people were gored by the bulls and some of them even died of injuries. In 2006, four people died on the spot and over 200 were injured. This was a gripping battle between the man and the animal, but excessively violent. While bull-taming events take place all over southern Tamil Nadu, the one in Alanganallur in Madurai district is world famous. There are many instances where chilly powder was put in the eyes of the bulls. They were also intoxicated with a heavy dose of arrack, before scores of people pounced on them. Following last year’s High Court directive, veterinary doctors used to examine the bulls to ensure that they were not drugged or intoxicated before the event, but the general cruelty of the event remained. It is dangerous for the bulls as well as the participants. The State Government wanted the event to continue but was not willing to furnish an undertaking that there would be no human or animal casualty. At a time when even caging an animal is frowned upon, engaging them in a blood sport is anachronistic indeed. The court has directed that henceforth the event would be confined to a simple race of bulls or bullock carts. |
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Dating the diaspora THE benefits of holding the annual Pravasi Bharatiya Divas in Delhi and similar NRI get-togethers in some states may not be many if measured in monetary terms alone. However, regular interaction between the country and its diaspora strengthens the sense of belonging. When NRIs in Malaysia or Kenya feel threatened, they expect help from their country’s leadership. Indians all over feel proud when a Sunita Williams or a Lakshmi Mittal makes a global mark. The holding of the “pravasi divas” on January 8-9 every year to mark the return of Mahatma Gandhi from South Africa, the grant of dual citizenship and the setting up of a ministry of overseas Indian affairs are among the steps that have encouraged the dialogue with the diaspora. After China, India has the world’s largest number of diaspora - 25 million in 110 countries. Their combined wealth is estimated at one trillion US dollars. If overseas Indian investment is significantly lower than what overseas Chinese invest in their country, it is because most of them are workers and professionals while most Chinese are from business families. Besides, unhelpful bureaucratic mindset, administrative hurdles and delays keep off NRIs and PIOs from contributing to their country of origin. Many of them want to fund education, but the government decision to centralise all overseas donations acts as a deterrent. States have their own agenda for the diaspora. This year the political leadership in Gujarat, Kerala, Jharkhand, Haryana and Punjab has tried to woo NRI investment. The Haryana Chief Minister has offered IT opportunities in Panchkula while the Punjab Chief Minister has announced the establishment of fast-track courts and special police stations for NRIs in six districts. Some of the problems concerning NRIs can be solved if the land and housing records are computerised and the marriage laws strictly implemented. Good governance, removal of red tape and a congenial investment environment can attract overseas Indians more than any fire-fighting measures. |
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For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn? — Jane Austen
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Better climate for Indo-Pak ties
There
has never been found so much spontaneous sympathy and support in India for Pakistan as seen after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. My travels have taken me to several parts of the country in the last fortnight and I have found people wanting to reach out to the Pakistanis to help them in any way. It is as if the tragedy has pushed aside the estrangement. A poignant remark heard is why Pakistan should not have democracy like India. Still there are some people who sniff at the narrowing of differences between the two countries and go on interpreting the feeling of goodwill as a sign of sentimental ties of Punjabis with Pakistan. If anything, it should be anger because those who crossed into India left everything behind, property and other assets. It is difficult for some to understand how the enemies of yesterday can be friends today. The relationship between France and Germany should serve them as an example. The two countries fought against each other for hundreds of years, yet they are the best of friends now. It is not known whether the elected rulers in Islamabad would build the relationship on this favourable ground. But if they manage to do so both countries could be the best of neighbours. Pakistan’s founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah, too, had expressed the hope that India and Pakistan would one day be like the US and Canada. Probably, the time for that idea has come. Benazir Bhutto’s killing, however tragic, has provided the opportunity. When former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was hanged, there was hardly any protest in Pakistan. In contrast, Delhi and many other places witnessed popular demonstrations to ventilate their sympathy. The then Indian Prime Minister, Morarji Desai, disassociated his government from the people’s response, stating that what happened to Bhutto was an internal affair of Pakistan. The Manmohan Singh government seems to have had its ears to the ground. It has not only paid tributes to Benazir Bhutto but many Union Ministers, including the Prime Minister, have gone to the Pakistan High Commission to sign the condolence book. It is possible that Mr Nawaz Sharif, if his party attains a majority, will go the farthest limit to befriend India. At least this is the impression I gathered when I met him first at Jeddah and later in London. He disowns the responsibility of the Kargil adventure and repeatedly says that he was not in the picture. This may well be true because Gen Ayub Khan also did not know when Zulfikar Ali Bhutto sent the infiltrators into Kashmir in 1965. Both Mr Nawaz Sharif and Gen Ayub Khan came to know about the hostilities when they were in the midst of war. However, since the nineties, people-to-people contacts have themselves become an institution in the two countries. Civil societies on both sides have responded well and they would like to bury the hatchet. It would be a tragedy if the ISI were to reactivate the Babbar Khalsa to revive terrorism in Punjab, as reports indicate. President Pervez Musharraf has never thought of dismantling the training camps in his country. What is worrying the domestic scenario in Pakistan. Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) is now practically under the control of Mr Asif Ali Zaradari, her husband. It is true that Benazir’s son, Bilawal, has been named as her successor, although nobody has seen Benazir Bhutto’s will. Bilawal is only 19 and Zaradari is going to head the party till he returns after his studies at Oxford. It may mean four to five years of Mr Zaradari’s control over the PPP. Mr Zaradari is a tainted man and his deeds of corruption are a household word in Pakistan. In the first term of Benazir Bhutto he was called Mr 10 Per Cent and in the second he was Mr 15 Per Cent. Even if he does not sit in the chair of Prime Minister, he will be ruling the country from behind the scenes if the PPP comes to power. He has already said that he wants to be like Mrs Sonia Gandhi in Pakistan. It is no compliment to her and shows how powerful she is. Mr Makhdoom Fahim, who has been named as the PPP’s nominee for the prime ministership, is too decent and too withdrawn a person. My hunch is that he may not even take up the position, knowing Mr Zaradari as he does. Mr Zaradari may well be “the reluctant” Prime Minister. However, the greatest danger that Mr Zaradari poses to the PPP is the Sindh complexion he has given to the party. He has not associated any leader worth the name from Punjab. There is no Aitzaz Ahsan, no Mubishar Hussain, and no Asma Jehangir. It is strange that Mr Zaradari has not even demanded for the release of political leaders like Mr Aitzaz Ahsan, who has emerged a popular leader throughout Pakistan. If Mr Zaradari continues to keep the Punjab leaders out, the PPP can split. In fact, the progressive elements which have given the PPP a left-of-the-centre image are primarily from Punjab. They are the ones who backed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s call for roti, kapada aur makan. Mr Zaradari has no such pretentions. He may play havoc with the party’s principles because he has no hesitation in joining hands with President Musharraf or the Army directly. At least Mr Nawaz Sharif says that he will have no truck with the Army and wants it to have the same status as the military in India has. His line has been that Pakistan must return to democracy. But he also knows that the going would be tough. Perhaps, Mr Nawaz Sharif realises that democracy in India is the result of a long independence struggle. We imbued some of its values, free elections, free judiciary and free media. Yet we nearly lost democracy in 1975 because Indira Gandhi turned authoritarian. It took two years for people to resurrect it. Pakistan came into being as a result of an agreement on Partition. Its freedom struggle has begun now. The lawyers’ movement is one example. Media men’s agitation to get their right to express what they want to say is another one. Baluchistan’s resistance to the government’s repression is yet another. All these movements are reminiscent of the days of our independence. Then too there were several strands of struggle. One day the different streams will become such a torrent that it will wash away all impediments. Pakistan will be a democracy one day. It is only a question of
time.
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Jinxed
Vocabularies
evolve and change. Old terms are discarded and new one’s introduced. One such casualty is the word “jinxed”, which is used but rarely today. Perhaps the world has become too scientific and rational to brook the implied superstitions of this word, perhaps it was too easy and vague an explanation for all the phenomenon that occur around us for it to be acceptable to the modern scientific mind. But once in while, a string of coincidences occur, which force us to still use this word. One such chain of incidents happened to my friend Chandu. Chandu and I both taught in a residential school. He belonged to Jhansi and was always co-opted to escort the school party to Bombay for the vacations. The first time their bus broke down a little beyond Kalka and by the time they reached the Ambala railway station, their train had long since left. So they spent the next 24 hours in their special bogie without electricity and without a water connection. The railway refreshment room threw up its hands in despair and expressed its inability to feed this horde of hungry children. Somehow they survived, and resumed their journey the next day, none the worse for their experience. The second time everything went well till they were an hour short of Bhopal. There was a jolt, the bogie gave a lurch and all hell broke loose — the bogie had overturned. Chandu said he had never felt so helpless in his life. All he could hear were the cries of the panic-stricken children. Fortunately a group of villagers descended on the boogie almost immediately, wrenched open the doors and carefully brought out each child, each piece of baggage. Another group brought food and the children, now well over their shock, fell to with the gusto that only children can feel. The third time, somewhere during the wee hours of the morning, an enterprising robber entered the bogie and for some reason decided to target Chandu and Chandu alone. When he awoke it was to discover that all he had to his name was the lung and vest that he was wearing. The party was greeted by a crowd of excited parents at Bombay and in this excitement none of the children remembered to tell their parents of Chandu’s loss and none of the parents thought to comment upon Chandu’s strange attire if the escort from the Lawrence School Sanawar chose to alight at Bombay Centralstation in a lungi and vest it was merely a matter of personal preference and did not warrant comment! With each goodbye Chandu’s heart sank a little further. He had visions of being left alone, barefoot, unshaved and unwashed without any money and having to beg passers-by for assistance. Fortunately the last parent asked in parting. “Can I offer you a lift, Mr Abraham?” And the day was saved. Chandu Abraham and his jinxed railway journeys are now in the distant past — perhaps it is time for me too to discard this word from my
vocabulary.
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A giant of a man
Sir Edmund Hillary was the mountain-climbing New Zealand beekeeper who became a mid-20th century hero as the first person to reach the summit of Mount Everest. Hillary, who made his historic climb to the top of the world’s highest mountain with Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay of Nepal, died at the age of 88 at a hospital in Auckland City. “Sir Ed described himself as an average New Zealander with modest abilities. In reality, he was a colossus,” New Zealand PM Helen Clark said. Ed Viesturs, the first American to climb all of the world’s mountains over 8,000 meters – 26,200 feet – without supplemental oxygen, said Hillary was “definitely a hero of mine.” “He’s iconic,” Viesturs said. “I mean, he went to a place where no other man had gone before.” Viesturs, who has climbed Everest six times, said Hillary not only was an inspiration to him as a climber “but for what he did afterward. Giving back to the people of Nepal (through the Himalayan Trust) is a tremendous legacy.” Eight previous British expeditions had failed to reach the top of the 29,017-foot peak and a number of expedition members had died in the process, most famously climbing partners George Mallory and Andrew Irvine who disappeared on Everest in 1924. But at 11:30 a.m. on May 29, 1953, Hillary, then 33, and Tenzing made it to the top of the world. Hillary’s first words, to fellow climber George Lowe, when he and Tenzing returned from the summit, were, “Well, George, we knocked the bastard off!” Word of the British Everest expedition’s success reached England the night before the coronation of Elizabeth II, resulting in a memorable newspaper headline the next morning: “All this and Everest too!” Hillary and John Hunt, the British Army colonel who led the Everest expedition, were knighted by Queen Elizabeth; and Tenzing received the George Medal, the second-highest award for gallantry that can be given to a civilian. Hailed as one of the 20th century’s great adventurers, Hillary became one of the most famous men alive, with his long, rugged face appearing on everything from magazine covers to postage stamps. The tall and lean Hillary never expected to become a world-renowned celebrity. “I was a bit naive, really,” he told The Detroit Free Press in 2000. “I was just a country boy. I thought the mountaineering world would be interested, but I never dreamed that it would have that effect on people who didn’t climb.” Conquering Everest wasn’t the last of Hillary’s epic adventures. He climbed other peaks in the Himalayas on return visits and, in 1958, he led a team of New Zealanders who beat a British team in a race to the South Pole in large snow tractors across 1,200 miles of glaciers and heavily crevassed snow fields. In 1960, he was back in the Himalayas attempting to track down the legendary Yeti – the Abominable Snowman – with animal expert Marlin Perkins and to conduct high-altitude physiology experiments. In 1977, he led a jet-boat expedition up the Ganges River from the Bay of Bengal to as close to the river’s source in the Himalayas as they could go – a 1,500-mile journey. That was followed by another 100 miles on foot to more than 18,000 feet, where Hillary was stricken with a cerebral edema and had to be helicoptered out after being carried down to 15,500 feet. But along with the triumphs came tragedy. In 1975, Hillary’s first wife, Louise, and their 16-year-old daughter, Belinda, were killed when the single-engine plane they were flying in crashed on takeoff at the airport in Katmandu. In 1989, he married June Mulgrew, a longtime family friend and widow of fellow mountaineer Peter Mulgrew, who had taken Hillary’s place as a commentator on a 1979 Antarctic sightseeing flight and died when the plane crashed. Over the years, Hillary, who in 1985 became New Zealand High Commissioner to India and was based in New Delhi for several years, served as a camping equipment adviser for Sears Roebuck, lectured widely and wrote a number of books, including High Adventure, The Crossing of Antarctica, No Latitude for Error, From the Ocean to the Sky, Nothing Venture, Nothing Win and View From the Summit. Hillary spent much of his time raising funds for the Himalayan Trust. He founded the nonprofit organization in 1961 as a way to give back to the Sherpas, one of the many ethnic groups native to Nepal, who served as guides for Western expeditions in the Himalayas. By 2006, the Trust had built 27 schools, two hospitals and 13 village health clinics, in addition to rebuilding bridges, constructing drinking water systems and providing student scholarships, among other projects. “Nothing in life can be more satisfying than being the first,” Hillary reflected in 2000, “but what I’m proudest of is my work in the Himalayas.” The middle of three children, Hillary was born July 20, 1919, in Auckland. His father ran a small weekly newspaper in Tuakau, where the family lived on seven acres that included a half-dozen cows, a large vegetable garden and orchards. Hillary’s father’s hobby was beekeeping, and he eventually abandoned journalism to run what had become a profitable commercial beekeeping enterprise. Intending to become an engineer, he entered the University of Auckland. But, he later said, his found it difficult to adapt and lacked interest, so he dropped out after two years and went to work in his father’s thriving beekeeping business. Hillary began climbing four years later when he, a friend and a guide climbed a small peak near a resort on the South Island. In 1944, he was called up for service in the Royal New Zealand Air Force and flew on Catalina flying boats in search and rescue operations in Fiji. After the war, he returned to climbing and scaled New Zealand’s snow-covered, 12,349-foot Mount Cook, which he later described as “the ambition of all local climbers.” “I knew right away that this is what I wanted to do, spend my life among the mountains and the snow and the ice,” he told The Detroit Free Press in 2000. “I had never been happier in my life, and I couldn’t wait to do it again.” After a climbing trip to the European Alps, Hillary made his first climbing trip to the Himalayas in 1951. A year later, he joined in on a “training run” in Nepal for the team the Everest Committee intended to send to Everest in 1953. In his 1975 autobiography Nothing Venture, Nothing Win, Hillary said Everest “represented the ultimate in achievement; the supreme challenge for flesh and blood and spirit.” Launched with what Hillary described as “an atmosphere of excitement and optimism,” the large team of Britons, New Zealanders, Sherpas and supply-carrying porters established base camp on April 12. On May 26, Charles Evans and Tom Bourdillon, who had been chosen to make the first assault to the top of Everest, made it over the South Summit. But they had had problems with their oxygen equipment and, because of exhaustion and a limited amount of oxygen left, they decided to turn back at 28,700 feet; the next day, the two climbers were taken down to safer levels. That left the second assault team, Hillary and Tenzing. The day of their final ascent May 29, Hillary and Tenzing awoke at 4 a.m. in their small tent perched on a sloping snow ledge they had dug out with their ice axes the day before. The temperature at approximately 27,900 feet was minus 27 degrees. But, Hillary wrote in Nothing Venture, Nothing Win, the weather looked perfect and the view superb.” At 6:30 a.m., after eating, loading up on fluid and thawing out their frozen boots, the two men began climbing. At 9 a.m., Hillary wrote, “we cramponed up onto the fine peak of the South Summit.” After about an hour, they encountered a vertical rock step in the ridge. “This appeared to be quite a problem,” Hillary wrote. “However, the step was bounded on its right by a vertical snow cliff and I was able to work my way up this 40 foot crack and finally get over the top.” After bringing Tenzing up, he wrote, “I really felt now that we were going to get to the top and that nothing would stop us.” At 11:30 a.m., the two men were standing on the summit of Everest. “I stretched out my arm for a handshake, but this was not enough for Tenzing who threw his arms around my shoulders in a mighty hug and I hugged him back in return,” Hillary wrote in View From the Summit. When Hillary and Tenzing reached the summit of Everest, no one really knew if it was humanly possible to do so, Hillary told People magazine. “The physiologists had warned us that they weren’t sure we would survive. They felt that the human body might not be able to withstand the lack of oxygen. So once we climbed it, we removed the psychological barrier for everyone else.” In the years since Hillary and Tenzing made history, many others have followed in their footsteps. By 2006, aided by advances in tents, sleeping bags and climbing gear, 3,000 people reportedly had reached the top of Everest with an additional 207 dying in the attempt. In his later years, Hillary was bothered by the commercialisation of Everest in which guides would take anyone to the top of the mountain who could afford it with fees ranging up to $65,000. But he and Tenzing, who died of a lung infection in 1986 at 72, “were really the lucky ones,” Hillary told The Boston Globe in 1998. “We had to do everything ourselves: establish the route, battle our way up the ice cliffs and across the crevices, make our way up the mountain. It was up to us to do it all.” In addition to his wife, Hillary’s survivors include his children Peter and Sarah. By arrangement with
LA Times-Washington Post |
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Chatterati Tejinder Khanna, the Lieutenant-Governor (LG) of Delhi, has fortunately dropped his most ambitious plan to date. He wanted to give citizens of Delhi ID cards and had to back off after a storm of protest. It ensured that he was left speechless, defenceless and red in the face. Now he has gone back to doing what he does best, which is worrying about block numbers and other such details in the DDA’s urban plans. Wonder what real job LGs have on their regular days? May be some one should ask this, given that all of them have just got a huge pay hike this week. The mad scheme to have ID cards would have given the police a fabulous opportunity to trouble random citizens. It was also going to make Delhi feel like a police state. Can you imagine everybody – yes, everybody – having to get papers done to prove that he/she was a citizen of Delhi? The process would surely have taken longer than building a stadium for the commonwealth games. Nitish Kumar and Mayawati, whose citizens are a large part of Delhi protested loudly and Shiela Dixit protested effectively. Was it a rogue policeman on Tejinder Khanna’s list of advisors who led him up this path? But surely a highly paid LG should be smarter than that.
Poll matters The leaders who came to see Mrs Gandhi on her first day at work were requested not to brings bouquets and flowers. A Congress leader said that one of those attending the meeting joked about outlandish media reports that the Congress had reportedly spent Rs 450 crore on the Gujarat campaign. Some other issues discussed at the meeting, attended by Motilal Vohra, Janardan Dwivedi, Prithviraj Chavhan, Margaret Alva and political secretary Ahmed Patel, concerned pressing matters in states. In Goa, Ms Gandhi was consulted about the appointment of a Congress Legislature Party leader for the state and appraised about the re-qualification of three Goa MLAs disqualified by the assembly Speaker. Issues pertaining to poll-bound Karnataka were also briefly mentioned. The Congress has to constitute a campaign committee for Karnataka elections and also take a call on whether or not to accommodate rebels such JD(S) leader M.P. Prakash. The Congress’ experiment of giving outsiders tickets bombed in Gujarat and it is this lesson that many in the party are bringing up while discussing Karnataka.
Big business, religion, glamour and politics, suddenly seem to have found a home in Udaipur. 2008 started with Anil Ambani, Tina in tow, along with his sons Jaianmol and Jaianshul. The Ambanis visited the Srinath temple before the launch of Reliance Power Ltd’s Initial Public Offer (IPO), the country’s largest IPO to date. Perhaps, even as they were praying at the temple, Madonna brought along husband Guy Ritchie and two-year-old son David Banda. Well, it is expected that few Indian politicians can get this combination of money and glamour, but then Lalu is no ordinary politician. Shortly after Madonna’s departure, Lalu, Rabri and sons have landed in the city to stay at the same hotel as Madonna. Lalu spent time in the same suite that Madonna had occupied. Lalu, of course, was very excited with the trip. No doubt. |
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