Why is Jayalalitha so desperate?
READING the headlines these days is rather like watching one of those ghastly soap-operas such as ‘The Bold and The Beautiful’. Every episode ends on a cliffhanger note, but tune in seven months later and the same characters are mouthing the same lines.

A close associate of Nawaz Sharif
UNLIKE his predecessor, Gohar Ayub Khan, the new Foreign Minister of Pakistan, Sartaj Aziz, is not a rabblerouser.Nor is he pathologically anti-India.

Israelis rush to learn manners AFTER decades in the wilderness preaching etiquette, Tamil Leibovitz’s charm school on the outskirts of Tel Aviv is besieged by former army officers, aspiring politicians and budding socialites, all willing to pay to break into polite society.

75 Years Ago

Redistribution of seats in Lahore Municipality
THE City Fathers of Lahore met in an ordinary meeting on Saturday morning in the Town Hall under the presidency of Chaudhri Shahabuddin.

By T.V.R Shenoy
Why is Jayalalitha so desperate?

READING the headlines these days is rather like watching one of those ghastly soap-operas such as ‘The Bold and The Beautiful’. Every episode ends on a cliffhanger note, but tune in seven months later and the same characters are mouthing the same lines. That is precisely how I feel about the Jayalalitha vs BJP saga.

I won’t bore readers by relating each of the charges hurled by the AIADMK against her nominal partners in Delhi. But the two latest entrants on that list are so nutty — there is no other word for them — that one is left wondering why Jayalalitha is so desperate.

The first allegation is that M. Bezbaruah, the chief of the Enforcement Directorate, was transferred because somebody in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) was bribed. Her second charge is that the new Revenue Secretary, Javed Chaudhary, has a track record of harassing her and her associates.

There is a public interest litigation in the Supreme Court about Bezbaruah’s transfer and I would rather not debate an issue that is sub judice. But it is only fair to note that the sudden removal of the Enforcement Directorate’s boss came in rather ill-advised haste.

On the other hand, there is also no evidence to back up Jayalalitha’s charge of bribery. The PMO has already asked Jayalalitha to back up her allegations with proof. But I am sure the whole matter will be thoroughly investigated with the Supreme Court itself taking an interest in the matter.

So let us turn to Jayalalitha’s second allegation — the one against Javed Chaudhary. She has accused the new Revenue Secretary of conducting a sustained campaign against her in the days when he was head of the Enforcement Directorate. The unstated implication is that he shall continue to hound her in his new post (which supervises the Enforcement Directorate).

Is there a morsel of truth in such an allegation? I am afraid the facts don’t bear out Jayalalitha’s tale.

The Enforcement Directorate carried out a series of searches in July, 1995, which form the basis of the cases against Jayalalitha’s associates. But the point is that Javed Chaudhary had been shifted out of the Enforcement Directorate in May, 1995. He was succeeded by H.P. Kumar, then head of the Narcotics Control Bureau. And it was under Kumar’s aegis that Jayalalitha’s troubles began.

I am not saying that Javed Chaudhary wouldn’t have acted as Kumar did. It is the duty of the Enforcement Directorate to investigate a case given sufficient proof. All I say is that he wasn’t in that office when the time came.

I should add that the evidence of wrongdoing was submitted by none other than Dr Subramaniam Swamy, who now poses as Jayalalitha’s political adviser! If the AIADMK supremo is worried at the plight of her associates, she should blame Swamy, not the hapless Javed Chaudhary.

Let me recap the facts. When Jayalalitha’s associates became objects of scrutiny H.P. Kumar was at the helm of the Enforcement Directorate. The Revenue Secretary at the time was M.R. Srinivasan. And their boss, the man who gave them the green signal to start the investigations, was none other than Dr Manmohan Singh. But with the AIADMK wooing the Congress, that is something Jayalalitha prefers to gloss over for the moment.

Javed Chaudhary enjoys a reputation as a clean officer, which is reason enough for many politicians to be unhappy at his elevation. But he certainly didn’t begin any vendetta against Jayalalitha three years ago.

If she wants to pick a fight, she should take on Manmohan Singh and Subramaniam Swamy. What is the point of rounding on a civil servant who is demonstrably innocent of the silly charge against him?

It is axiomatic that no chain is stronger than its weakest link. Jayalalitha’s charges against the Revenue Secretary can be disproved with contemptuous ease. Should we take her other allegations any more seriously?

By Julian Borger
Israelis rush to learn manners

AFTER decades in the wilderness preaching etiquette, Tamil Leibovitz’s charm school on the outskirts of Tel Aviv is besieged by former army officers, aspiring politicians and budding socialites, all willing to pay to break into polite society.

“There is a huge demand,” said the immaculately groomed image consultant, aged 50. “When I started years ago, people told me, ‘manners is not for us. It is for Europe and North America.’ But now with the globalisation of culture and business there are no more borders.”

Mrs Leibovitz believes that her country’s tradition of bluntness and plain speaking has become a burden on the world stage. In a speech earlier this month in Miami, she warned visiting businessmen: “Israelis will cut in on your conversation and will often interrupt in the middle of a sentence. It is also quite common for an Israeli to complete your sentence for you. Israelis talk very loudly.”

One of Ms Leibovitz’s main clients, the Foreign Ministry, is also keenly aware of an image problem. A senior Israeli diplomat said that when briefing foreigners “my opening statement is : ‘Let me tell you something about volume. This is our opening volume’.” The diplomat raised his voice a few dozen decibels. “This is our cultural gap. So don’t get offended,” he added.

Mrs Leibovitz attributes the Israelis’ direct, unembellished style of communication to the country’s precarious strategic circumstances. “When I was 18 I was in the army, and then I married a soldier. We live in stress. My children went to the army, so I became the mother of children serving in Lebanon. I cannot sleep at night. And one day I will be the grandmother of a soldier.”

There is also the “freier” factor. “Freier” is Yiddish for sucker and no Israeli, Mrs Leibovitz explains, wants to be seen as one. Following the recent breakdown of talks with the Palestinians, the Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, proudly told Israeli journalists: “I’m no freier.”

“I have to tell my clients ‘you are not a freier — you’re not a sucker’ — if you have good manners. If you start behaving differently, you will see what you get from it,” Mrs Leibovitz said. She takes her students out on to Israel’s competitive roads. “Normally, if you want to turn left or right, nobody — nobody — will let you into their lane. I show people that if you make eye-contact and gesture with your hand perhaps, people will make way for you,” she said.

Mrs Leibovitz and her company, Litam Manners, are not alone in attempting to prepare Israelis for a world of global communication. After a string of outraged letters to the press three years ago, the state-run phone company, Bezek, issued a booklet of advice for users, in which it recommended that mobile phones should be turned off during funerals.

The mobile phone is ubiquitous in Israel and it has become one of Mrs Leibovitz bugbears. “If I am in a restaurant, there will be people on all sides talking into their phones and not to the people they are with. I tell my students to turn it off. If they are expecting an urgent call, they should warn the other person and ask permission.”

At Litam Manner’s headquarters in the tranquil Tel Aviv suburb of Ramat Gan, Mrs Leibovitz gives one-on-one consultations and group “finishing touch” courses. She also gives year-long lecture series at the Tel Aviv College of Management, costing about $ 1,600.

She has several ex-officers on her books, who are trying to pick up civilian deportment to make a fresh start in business or politics. She also coaches a number of politicians, but she is too discreet to name names. Before giving an interview, she wound up a session with an aspiring candidate for Tel Aviv’s city hall, a heavy-set woman dressed in black.

“She’ll have to go on a diet, of course, but she’ll always be big. But we can do something with her clothes and the way she talks.”

For Mrs Leibovitz, it is not just a matter of having nice table etiquette. She believes that the road to peace in West-Asia could be paved with good manners. “We have to see that even Palestinians are human beings just like we are human beings. We don’t know yet how to speak to other people and how to solve problems together. We have to learn that.”

— By arrangement with The Guardian.

By Harihar Swarup
A close associate of Nawaz Sharif

UNLIKE his predecessor, Gohar Ayub Khan, the new Foreign Minister of Pakistan, Sartaj Aziz, is not a rabblerouser. Nor is he pathologically anti-India. It is said for public consumption that Gohar Ayub had resigned three months back and wanted to be relieved but the real story behind his replacement is different. Had the hawkish son of Pakistan’s first military ruler, the late Field Marshal Mohammed Khan, remained in the foreign office, chances of cordial Indo-Pak relations would have touched a new low. Gohar also did not desist from U.S. bashing whenever he got an opportunity, greatly annoying Washington.

Unlike Gohar Ayub, Sartaj Aziz does not have a military background nor has he ever enjoyed the backing of the army. Aziz is known to be a close associate of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and was, at one time, Secretary-General of Pakistan’s Muslim League. Those were difficult times; the party was in the opposition and Nawaz Sharif had to face the wrath of the Benazir Bhutto Government. Aziz is basically an economist, having specialised in agriculture and worked with FAO headquarters in Rome. His exposure to politics is comparatively less.

As Finance Minister he had come to be known as an “economic wizard” and is regarded as the main architect of the Sharif Government’s economic policies during two terms in the Finance Ministry; from 1990 to 1993 and in February, 1997, when Nawaz Sharif assumed power for the second time. Aziz started his political career as late as 1984 as Minister of State for Food and Agriculture in the government of military ruler General Mohammed Zia-ul-Haq. Then Prime Minister Mohammed Khan Junejo made him his special assistant in 1985, Deputy Food Minister and Agriculture Minister a year later, and full Food and Agriculture Minister in 1988.

Harvard educated Aziz lately became very unpopular in Pakistan because he was forced to take hard economic decisions. Heavy doses of taxes, repeated devaluation of the rupee, rising prices and freezing of foreign currency accounts evoked people’s antipathy towards him and he came to be known as “surcharge Aziz”. The accounts were frozen to avoid a run on banks after Pakistan’s nuclear tests on May 28 last. Accounts holders were later allowed to make withdrawals in Pakistani currency only, and last month the government launched dollar bonds that can be bought from frozen accounts.

Sartaj Aziz was candid enough to admit to a visiting Indian journalist that Pakistan neither had the resources nor the resilience to tide over the sanctions imposed by the USA and Japan. He has a lurking doubt that India had purposely chosen the time to economically ruin Pakistan. As a good economist, he has figures on his fingertips to back up his argument. “India has $27 billion as foreign exchange reserves while Pakistan’s do not exceed $1 billion.”

The new Foreign Minister has a constructive approach to alleviate the hardships faced by the people of the two countries in the aftermath of the sanctions and says it would not be in the interest of India to let Pakistan sink in the quagmire of economic chaos. He even provides a quick solution: “We can provide you raw material which you can process. We do not have to worry if we have to work out things together”.

Then the biggest hurdle — the Kashmir problem — comes in the way and Sartaj Aziz harps on many-time rejected plebiscite and wants it to hold it district-wise in the strife-torn state. Why can’t the two countries put Kashmir, defying solution for 50 years, on the backburner, at least, for the time being and address to the real problems hinging on the prosperity and the sub-continent.

As a moderate and pragmatic Foreign Minister, Aziz will have to address himself to the most important task of improving Indo-Pak relations and, at the same time, plead for relaxation of crippling sanctions and put Islamabad’s case amid pressure to join the international nuclear non-proliferation regime.

Some say that Sartaj Aziz’s shifting from the Finance Ministry to Foreign Affairs may rescue him from domestic pressure and intense public criticism but dealing with external matters may turn out to be a more difficult task. He may have to initiate much-needed review of Pakistan’s foreign policy and inculcate certain amount of openness in policy making. The task appears to be difficult in view of his Prime Minister’s lack of skill for diplomacy.

75 YEARS AGO
Redistribution of seats in Lahore Municipality

THE City Fathers of Lahore met in an ordinary meeting on Saturday morning in the Town Hall under the presidency of Chaudhri Shahabuddin. The agenda for the consideration of the House was a long one, but unfortunately the question of the inadequate representation of the Hindus, Sikhs and Christians on the committee took about three hours of the valuable time of the House and the meeting was adjourned by the President without arriving at any decision.

The Deputy Commissioner of Lahore had forwarded the letter of the Punjab Government (Transfers Department) regarding the division of the municipal area into wards, to the Secretary of the Municipal Committee for information and report regarding the ward distribution. According to the new arrangement, the redistribution of seats is as under: Mussalmans — 17 seats, Hindus — 11 seats, European British — 1 seat and others — 1 seat.

The opinion of the committee was not invited on the point regarding this change in the constitution of the committee. The Hindu and Sikh members wanted to protest against this action of the government. The debate, however, took a communal turn — the Muslims on the one side and other communities on the other.