P A G E
Saturday, April 24, 1999
today's calendar
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E D I T O R I A L P A G E |
Saturday, April 24, 1999 |
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Budget,
with errors
JALLIANWALA
BAGH |
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Did
President goof on trust vote advice?
Wagle
brings cheer
Ropeway
for Siachen
Babbar Akali conspiracy case |
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Budget, with errors and all DEPEND on politicians to bring out the worst in them at a time of crisis. And today the system is rocked by a multiple crisis and the political class is exacerbating it in every way. Take the political turmoil. There are many who have contributed to triggering and later sharpening it and now in pushing it to a point of no easy solution. But the economic crisis is something else again. Unlike the other one which will blow out soon, the second one will affect the life of the nation and ordinary citizens in a dozen different ways and for a long time. And during the past one week what was a difficult situation to begin with, has become a major problem. The delay in passing the budget and the utter confusion before, during and after parliamentary voting has depressed sentiments in several quarters. And the economic health of a country has a lot to do with sentiments. In retrospect, it is clear that Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha’s refusal to have any changes in the budget has backfired. For one thing, as the Finance Secretary has been going about complaining, even drafting errors, unavoidable in preparing a long and complicated document like the Union budget, will have to wait for another day for correction. These errors are of various kinds and their removal at the time of voting through an official amendment is an annual routine. Then there are anomalies, which reflect conceptual confusion or wrong calculation. For instance, this year the steel industry is in dire trouble and deserves tax relief but it did not get any. The Standing Committee on Finance points out that the tax liability of the steel units is far larger than their capability to pay. Finally, there are grey areas, which have to be spelt out in clearer terms. Even politically too Mr
Sinha and his party have lost by shutting out a debate
and some amendments. If he had agreed to a limited
discussion, say, for three days before applying the
guillotine, he would have opened up the sharp differences
in the rival camp. Unlike in the BJP-led coalition, the
Congress and the Left parties follow economic policies
that are irreconcilable in many ways. And a public airing
of this basic ideological friction just before the two
groups sit down to hammer out an alternative coalition
was an excellent opportunity which Mr Sinha should not
have missed. True, every Finance Minister wants to
preserve the integrity of his budget and is reluctant to
allow any important changes except the ones he can weave
in without distorting its broad vision. But that is ego
satisfaction and Mr Sinha yearned for it after last
year’s rollback epidemic. But the political gains of
an open debate should have outweighed his personal
satisfaction. He will regret the missed chance,
particularly if the new government — if at all one
is formed — takes the budget back to the drawing
board for reworking it. |
Beware of sex maniacs AFTER three days of curfew Bokaro has still not got over the shock of the abduction and rape of a girl by 20 men. Curfew was imposed following spontaneous acts of violence against the alleged indifference of the police in investigating the case. The condition of the victim is stated to be critical and doctors suspect that the shock may have caused permanent damage to her brain. In Delhi a divorced tutor killed a St Stephen’s College student a week before she was to get married. He told the police that he secretly loved her and could not bear the thought of her getting married to someone else. Crime psychologists may describe the Bokaro incident as a manifestation of collective sickness triggered by x factors and the Delhi murder an example of the “Lolita syndrome” — a middle-aged man’s infatuation with a young girl. But there should be no disagreement among experts that the two episodes need to be analysed by psychologists and sociologists in view of the alarming increase in sex-related crimes across the country. To blame it all on television would amount to simplifying a highly complex issue. Is the media inadvertently spreading the sickness by giving extensive coverage to instances of gang-rape, molestation and murder of minors and incest? Was Chalapathi Rau right in killing a story about the alleged rape of a girl by her father because “it is too sick to be shared with the readers”? How should society react
to the rather bizarre incident of the abduction and
attempted molestation of a three-and-a-half-year-old girl
in Ahmedabad? She was allegedly abducted and tortured by
a 17-year-old delinquent whom she used to call
“kaka”. What is more intriguing is the fact
that Kaka did not commit the crime on his own. He was
reportedly paid Rs 15,000 by a well-connected socialite
and her journalist paramour. They had nothing against the
girl or her family. They paid the young men to commit the
ghastly crime because they needed the ears and other
body-parts of an under-aged virgin for performing a
tantric yagna. The girl is battling for life in a city
hospital. The journalist has been dismissed from service
by the employers. Although the socialite has been
arrested along with other suspects, she is reportedly
using her clout among bureaucrats and politicians for
stalling further investigation in the case. The Ahmedabad
episode is yet another example of the spread of
sex-related sickness in society. While psychologists and
sociologists are grappling with the evidence before them
for finding credible answers, the Gujarat Police is
trying to unravel the reason why the girl was abducted
and tortured three months before the tantric yagna for
the “welfare” of the socialite and her lover. |
Bihar continues to bleed THE delay in the repair of the social fabric in Bihar is causing much loss in terms of life and property. One is tired of mentioning again and again the death toll thrown up by the class and caste feuds in the virtually starving state ruled by the political and Naxalite mafia. Twelve persons were massacred on Wednesday night in two contiguous villages in Gaya district. The attack was launched against Yadavas, Manjhis (boatmen), Paswans and Kumhars (potters). When the Ranvir Sena (the private militia of Bhumihar Brahmin landowners) strikes, it decimates poor villagers. Normally, revenge is the motive. Last month, in Sinari village in Jehanabad district, 35 Bhumihars were killed by marauders of the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC). Having been driven out of the assertive Bhojpur belt by courageous people, MCC extremists have been using the quiet rural region of the traditionally peaceful Gaya district. Another Naxalite outfit called the People's War Group (PWG) has also shifted its base. The Yadavas seem to be their common enemies. The state government headed by a Yadava woman is in panic. Bhumihars have shown their muscle power. Dalits and other sections of the backward community (like them) are living in fear. Khagaribigha and Nazaribigha are sleepy little rural pockets where poor people live. They are ruled by the MCC and the PWG. The dread of the Ranvir Sena of the rich haunts them constantly. There is no one to give them succour. The police is busy theorising that the two villages are symbols of docility and, therefore, these are not quite vulnerable to Bhumihar violence. Sinari presented a
different picture. It shocked the armed members of the
angry upper caste. Chief Minister Rabri Devi and her
husband, Mr Laloo Yadav, were not allowed to visit the
village. A high-level team of the Congress sent by Mrs
Sonia Gandhi had to return to Delhi having gathered some
partially correct information from a distance. We had
warned the Central and state governments after the Sinari
episode that more bloodletting was going to happen soon.
We are not happy to think that Khagaribigha and
Nazaribigha have proved us right. Human life is precious.
Being impoverished places in Gaya district, these two
pockets hardly attract any attention. But violence is a
blind monster and it does not differentiate between
glitter and gloom. In this area, the cactus keeps
spreading in clusters beyond broken hedges into the homes
built of mud. The scene symbolises the endless trance as
well as the endless lack of creativity among the people
who have been fatalistically inactive for centuries. The
cactus continues to spread, encircling the villages with
its prickly grip. The region has to be treated as a
symbol of administrative neglect. Perhaps this time, when
the Yadavas are under attack, Mr Laloo Yadav would stir
his dormant conscience and try to provide protection to
his folk primarily, and to others incidentally! The need
of the hour is the ruthless implementation of land
reforms. It is possible to destroy the anarchist Ranvir
Sena root and branch. Similarly, it is not impossible to
contain the MCC and the PWG. West Bengal, the cradle of
the Naxalite movement, has shown the way. Mr Jyoti Basu
is called a harmoniser because he is not made of the
stuff from which Mr Laloo Yadav is proud to have evolved.
The Governor and the Chief Minister are doing nothing.
The Centre has many squabbles to deal with in an
atmosphere of destabilisation. It is not enough to shed
tears for the victims of anti-social conflagrations.
Bihar needs the vision of Shri Krishna Sinha and Krishna
Ballabh Sahay. |
JALLIANWALA
BAGH THE Tribune has done well to focus (on April 13) on the appalling conditions in Jallianwala Bagh, Amritsar, a monument of national importance, which to quote Jawaharlal Nehru, had marked a turning point in India’s struggle for independence, and led to the emergence of Mahatma Gandhi as the unquestioned leader of the country. It is regrettable indeed that the sum of Rs 2.50 crore which had been sanctioned by the Union Ministry of Human Resources on March 16, 1998, has not been released for installing a son-et-lumiere (light and sound). The light and sound programme envisaged may have been intrinsically of much educative value but there are certainly other equally important matters concerning the management of Jallianwala Bagh that require urgent attention. Accompanied by some historians from Guru Nanak Dev University, I visited Jallianwala Bagh in February, 1998, and we were appalled to see the garbage and dirt in the Bagh. The level of maintenance of the Bagh was miserably poor — stinking water seeping through, the lawns kept untidy, and a few portions of the surrounding walls becoming dilapidated. Unfortunately, the whole planning of the Jallianwala Bagh Memorial complex was hastily ill-conceived showing utter lack of imagination as quite a number of structures were raised haphazardly which are eyesores to the visitor. Normally, such monuments reflect the spirit of the time and recreate the past. That is why in the West utmost attention is paid to the building of the monuments which perpetuate the memory of the past. But as a nation, we care little for history and its preservation, and tend to violate its canons with reckless abandon. As things are, we cannot do much with the nature of what has been built, but within the limits, still much can be done to make Jallianwala Bagh a worthy place for the visitor, a place of honour to be revered for the sacrifices made by our forbears who had faced bullets and died for a noble cause. Last year I happened to work at Churchill Archives, Cambridge. Almost every week young students from one or other parts of England visited the Churchill Library Exhibition to study Winston Churchill’s life and work, and see a film on him. This is how spirit of patriotism is cultivated and a nation made. In this country, we start off things with a flourish, but our enthusiasm, sadly enough, wanes and things peter out, and eventually we start blaming one thing or another. It is regrettable indeed that on the 75th anniversary of Jallianwala Bagh massacre in 1994 neither the Punjab government nor Panjab University, the Amritsar administration or the local management organised any meaningful function except the visit of a number of politicians who came along in a leisurely fashion and delivered stereotyped speeches replete with meaningless platitudes. It is to the credit of Punjabi University, Patiala, and Nehru Memorial Library and Museum, New Delhi, that two seminars on Jallianwala Bagh episode were held to mark the significance of the event. Punjabi University has gone a step further in publishing the proceedings of the seminar, which is a valuable contribution to the study of Jallianwala episode. There is, generally speaking, some lethargy, inertia, and a bit of lassitude entering into the vitals of our life. For any purposeful assessment we have to go from the particular to the general. This point needs illustration! In June/July,1995, this writer was approached by the Director, Information and Public Relations, Punjab Government, and other officials to enlighten them on some aspects of Jallianwala Bagh massacre and they made enquiries about the publications connected with their scheme. They asked for my services in this connection, to which I gave ready assent. I gave them the requisite information. Three years are gone by, and the department which first showed such fervent zeal in the mission, did not show elementary courtesy of telling me about the fate of the project, far less associating me with it. Similarly, the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Department of Culture, Government of India, constituted a committee associating a number of historians with its Jallianwala Bagh project, but nothing came of it. It is not that the administration is always bitten with inertia. There are, however, exceptions. The construction of the Panipat Memorial to perpetuate the memory of the fallen heroes at the three battles, is an eloquent tribute to the imaginative insight, drive and technical skill of some of the senior officers of the Haryana Government who saw the completion of the whole plan in time. I would like to make the following suggestion for improving the Jallianwala Bagh complex. 1) It is important that some competent and knowledgeable persons be associated with the Executive Committee, Jallianwala Bagh Memorial Trust, and at least one or two historians, from the universities in Punjab, be associated with it for their expert advice. There should be a close supervision over the maintenance of the Jallianwala Bagh. 2) It is a pity that some of the bullet marks in the Bagh have vanished. A few that remain should be preserved with a proper cover over them. 3) The notice board near the office should be replaced by a new one. The text about the tragic event is superficial and incorrect. The figure of 2,000 casualties is utterly wrong and there is no basis for it. This figure had raised unseemly controversy during the Queen’s visit to Amritsar. 4) An indicator pointing out where General Dyer stood at the time of shooting on the raised platform be put at a prominent place. 5) It is necessary to identify the platform where the speaker was addressing when Dyer started shooting. 6) Identify the clay wall which people climbed to save themselves. 7) Two portraits of Udham Singh are displayed in the Martyrs’ gallery. This is funny. Udham Singh was clean shaven and wearing a hat when he had shot Sir Michael O’Dwyer dead. 8) The “Flame of Liberty” published by Jallianwala Bagh Memorial Trust is unsatisfactory, and a new short text should be published in English and Indian languages for the visitors. 9) The painting in the martyrs’ gallery does not represent the massacre. Dyer’s photos are easily available, as also of the Jallianwala Bagh in 1919. 10) A separate library is needed for books on the subject, maps and photos. These are a few suggestions but more are welcome so that a meaningful discussion may ensure for improving the Jallianwala Bagh complex. Things should not be allowed to go on as they are. Jallianwala Bagh is our national trust, a highly significant episode in our national upsurge and consciousness. How truly was it said on July 8,1920, by Col. Josia C. Wedgewood in the House of Commons: There has never been anything like it before in English history and not in the whole of our relations with India has there been anything of the magnitude before....... You will have a shrine erected there and every year there will be processions of Indians visiting the tomb of the martyrs, and Englishmen will go there and stand barefooted before it — whenever we put forward the humanitarian view, we shall have this tale thrown into our teeth. (The author has
several publications on Jallianwala Bagh massacre and is
an acknowledged authority on the subject.) |
Small dams to farmers’
rescue SMALL villages in India are showing how small dams, built by the people and for the people with the help of non-governmental organisations, have helped to improve the lives of all those living and farming in the surrounding areas. The technology is based on ancient practices that are now undergoing a revival as villagers all over India grow disenchanted with large-scale government water projects. “Now that we have more water our lives are much better,” says Sakarben, a strikingly dignified Rabari woman in her early 40s. The Rabaris — traditionally cattle herders but now mostly farmers — live in the semi-arid plains of Saurashtra. Before three small dams were built across a nearby nala or seasonal stream, Sakarben and the other women in her family had been forced to sell their gold jewellery, then leave Saurashtra to work as diamond polishers in Surat, one of the industrial centres of Gujarat. But now, although there is still plenty of hardship in their lives, Sakarben’s family can make a living from their own crops and animals, which can be supplemented as necessary with income from working on neighbouring farms. The technology that improved Sakarben’s life is very simple, relatively cheap to build, and easy to maintain. It consists of a well and three small earth embankments, the longest roughly 50 feet across and 5 feet high. Each of these so-called “nala plugs” impounds a small pond during the monsoon, which in Saurashtra occurs from June to September. The main benefit from the nala plugs, however, is not the surface water in which women can wash clothes, children can splash and water buffalo can wallow, but the water that seeps into the ground. Saurashtra, like much of the rest of India, is suffering from a groundwater crisis. Throughout the region, groundwater levels are plummeting, putting well water out of reach of those who cannot afford electric or diesel pumps. In the worst-affected areas, farmland and even whole villages are being abandoned. Two-thirds of the villages in Gujarat now have no permanent, reliable source of water, mainly because of the over-exploitation of groundwater. In coastal areas, sinking water tables allow salt water to seep into aquifers. Nearly half the hand pumps in coastal areas of Gujarat were reported in 1986 to be yielding salty water. Modern electrical or diesel-powered tubewells can draw water far faster and from far deeper than traditional dug wells. All over India, better-off farmers have taken advantage of government subsidies to install and operate tubewells, which raises their crop yields but has catastrophic impacts on groundwater levels and the livelihoods of their poorer dug-well-dependent neighbours. Eventually even tubewells become useless as aquifers are pumped dry or become saline. (Until a few decades ago Rabari families would often have owned hundreds of cattle, but the enclosure of common grazing lands and soil erosion have largely destroyed this basis of the region’s pastoral economy.) Five other families also benefit from the groundwater recharge provided by the three nala plugs. Sakarben lives near the market town of Savarkundla, which is the home base of the Kundla Taluka Gram Seva Mandal (Kundla County Villages Service Centre), a Gandhian non-governmental organisation whose work in the area dates back to the 1930s. The Service Centre started working on water issues in 1995 in response to the crisis caused by the over-exploitation of groundwater in the area. Since then they have built more than 1,000 nala plugs, and a number of check dams (slightly larger concrete versions of nala plugs) and percolation tanks (larger again) in around 35 villages. Manubhai Mehta, a 60-year-old Gandhian dressed in the all-white cotton jodhpurs and long tunics typically worn by Saurashtrian men, heads the Centre’s Water Resources Development Project. ‘When we started work’, he says, ‘water tables had dropped to around 50 or 60 feet, and in one village to 300 feet. Some of the wells were totally dry. The villages were suffering very bad shortages of water for drinking and irrigation in the winter and people were walking long distances to fetch water’. “Our dams are built by the people and for the people, not for the state,” Manubhai says, ‘so the people maintain them’. Manubhai says that when they reported the results of the first three years of their project, government officials refused to believe that so many structures could have been built with the 35 million rupees (approximately $ 830,000) spent to date. The Service Centre
claims that this investment has resulted in an annual
increase in income for farmers in the beneficiary
villages of around 73.5 million rupees. While most of
Saurashtra suffered acute drinking-water shortages in the
summer months before this year’s monsoon, Manubhai
says that only one of the villages where the Water
Resources Development Project is working required water
to be brought in by tanker. — (TWN) |
Ropeway
for Siachen THE news that the army is planning to construct ropeways at Siachen glacier with Japanese assistance for supply of stores and ammunition to various posts on the Saltoro range, brings to mind our earlier attempt to construct one across the Zojila pass in 1963, again with the help of the Japanese. The Zojila pass, which lies along the Srinagar-Leh road, falls in the highest snowfall belt of the middle Himalayas and gets blocked from end-October to about the middle of May. The clearance of the pass can get further delayed in case adequate snow clearance equipment is not available with the Border Roads Organisation. After the 1962 war with China, the strength of troops in the Ladakh region was increased which resulted in the demand for more administrative backing including the need for improved administrative infrastructure along the lines of communications. I, along with a party of about six, which included a doctor and engineer personnel, set out in March, 1963, to locate the logistic infrastructure such as transit camps, movement control set-up, recovery posts, medical aid posts etc along the Srinagar-Leh road. At Gund, we shed out transport and moved on foot over heavy snow and reached Baltal, which is at the foot of Zojila pass, on the third day. From Baltal, Amarnath cave is half a day’s march along a somewhat difficult route. We had to halt here for almost a week to wait for a clear day followed by a clear night to cross the pass. At the Baltal rest house we saw Jawaharlal Nehru’s entry in the register. He had spent his honeymoon at this rest house which has a breathtaking view of the surrounding mountains. We also witnessed innumerable avalanches of gigantic proportions accompanied by thundering noise louder than any thunder we had ever heard. Here we were joined by a Japanese team which had been invited by the Indian Government to construct a ropeway across the Zojila pass for transportation of stores during the period the road was closed due to heavy snow. We started at about 1 a.m. so as to cross the pass in the early hours; before the top crust of ice started softening up increasing the chances of avalanches. Zojila pass is like an open tunnel which is about three kilometres long with this entire length prone to avalanches. Consequent to these avalanches the snow accumulation along the surface of the pass is as much as 100 to 150 feet deep with thousands of tonnes of snow hanging perilously on the slopes on both sides, threatening to roll down, shattering and burying everything in its path. The Japanese team had never seen anything like this before or the primordial forces at work in such raw form. The sight was simply awe-inspiring. The Japanese did not find it feasible to construct a ropeway across the Zojila pass. One hopes they have more confidence now and improved technology to master nature’s forces at work at Siachen glacier. Since the snow and wind conditions are many shades worse than those at Zojila, hopefully they know what they are attempting. Finally, the proposal to
build ropeways at Siachen gives the impression that the
Indian army is planning to forever take up residence at
the Saltoro range. |
Did
President goof on trust vote advice? THE most disturbing question being asked in political circles in Delhi is: can Rashtrapati Bhavan be blamed for the political uncertainty that the country has been plunged into in recent weeks? And, sadly, there are many who answer yes. Among those who have dared say this publicly is former Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar, who went on nationwide television to announce that in his view it was wrong for the President to have asked the government to seek a vote of confidence in the Lok Sabha. The Prime Minister said almost the same thing when he began his answer to the trust vote debate by saying that he still did not understand why the Opposition parties had considered it necessary to approach the President when, since the Lok Sabha was in session, anyone could have moved a no-confidence vote in the government. What is the difference? Well, quite simply, although there are many small parties in Parliament like the Tamil Maanila Congress, who could not have expressed confidence in the BJP Government and would have almost certainly opposed a no-confidence motion if it had been brought by Jayalalitha’s AIADMK. Doubts about the President have, alas, persisted even since the Vajpayee Government lost the confidence motion by a single vote. Most of these doubts relate to the fact that the President, who opposed the government’s first Bill to put Bihar under President’s rule on the ground that it could lead to horse-trading, created a situation in which horse-trading became inevitable. No sooner did the government fall than many MPs made it clear that they were open for business. They clothed their intentions in noble sentiments. They were only ready to support a new “secular” government, they said, because they did not want to thrust a mid-term election on the country. But, anyone with even the minimum political acumen, knew exactly why they were suddenly so concerned about the country. During the trust vote debate, Sharad Pawar and Laloo Yadav proudly pronounced that a new government would be formed “in a minute”. In fact, the opposite happened. No sooner did the government fall than the political grapevine began to buzz with rumours that Mulayam Singh Yadav, as important in the new formation as Jayalalitha was in the last, was deeply unhappy about supporting a Congress government. His unhappiness is understandable when you consider that his main fight in Uttar Pradesh is against the Congress. Supporting a Congress government led by Sonia Gandhi from outside would for him amount to suicide because he would have to give his support without even the compensation that come with being in power at the Centre. The “one minute” stretched into several days during which speculation related to the “price” of MPs. Figures thrown about ranged from Rs 1 crore to Rs 9 crore per MP and because the toppling of the Vajpayee Government was seen as amoral and needless in the first place, everyone was prepared to believe anything. Through it all fingers have continued to be pointed at Rashtrapati Bhavan. Rumours filled the air and most of them hinted that the President did what he did because he had expected the government to be voted out with a larger number of votes. This would have made the process of swearing in a new Congress government easier and quicker. While the President dawdled over calling Sonia Gandhi to form the new government, the BJP tried to get its failed act together once more and produced letters of support that showed that the government still enjoyed the support of 270 MPs. Among the brickbats that have been flying around, there have also been many aimed at the BJP party managers. They were so sure that the government would survive that they are believed to have behaved arrogantly even with those whose support they were seeking. MPs from some of the smaller parties, who ended up voting against the government, claim that they received telephone calls from touts in Singapore and other strange places who offered them money on behalf of senior BJP leaders. Another rumour that has been doing the rounds is that an income tax raid on Hyatt Hotel inadvertently led to the room of a senior BJP leader where a large stash of money was found lying around. Delhi in times of political crisis is famous for seething with gossip, so it isn’t easy to say what is true and what is not but there is no question that the political atmosphere since the fall of the Vajpayee Government has been ugly and unpleasant. Rashtrapati Bhavan comes back into the picture when people point out that it makes hardly any sense for the President to have inadvertently helped topple one unstable coalition only to replace it with another. Surely, if he had the country’s good at heart could he not have been more careful? How does India benefit from having a Congress minority government in power with support from the outside of the very parties Congress has betrayed twice in the past three years? How do the various Marxists, Yadavs and sundry other “secular” parties support a government led by a party which they would fight in the next general election? When that famous “one minute” passed and victorious Opposition leaders had stopped making V signs outside Parliament House, the sobering realisation that elections could happen before the end of the year began to dawn. Suddenly, the new “secular” government was seen not so much as a stable alternative but as a temporary, caretaker affair. Is this what the President wanted? Even his concern that the Budget be passed with unanimity was greeted with sneers by those who have not benefited from his decision to order a vote of confidence. If he was so concerned, people say, then why did he not insist on the Budget being passed before the confidence vote? Surely, this would have at least been of some use to the country? On the whole, the
political drama we have seen has been squalid and sleazy.
Even those who flaunted victory signs and danced outside
Sonia Gandhi’s residence can hardly be described as
winners. In fact, the Congress could end up being the
biggest loser of all since there is no guarantee yet that
it can either keep its bizarre collection of allies
together or win the next election. And, if the next
general election throws up yet another uncertain mandate
then India would have wasted yet another year on politics
when what we so desperately need is governance. The
President could have spared us this. |
Wagle brings cheer to homes
IN a week when our screens are polluted with political turmoil of the most sordid variety, perhaps the viewers needed something ordinary, something human to restore sanity to the proceedings. Which is why I say, thank heavens for Wagle’s “Nai Duniya”, Dear rotund Wagle, an all-too-ordinary office worker, with his cheerful hard-working wife, and two little sons, always up to mischief but amenable to discipline. In other words, a normal Indian family going about its daily business. The revival of the serial under its familiar banner has brought a good deal of cheer to Indian homes. And is a reminder that Star Plus can, alas, too rarely, get away from its filmi chukkar, its glamour-laded chat shows and its endless sorties to the beautiful people who live above the clouds and certainly above the heads of ordinary viewers. So as Wagle makes a mess of the kitchen trying to help out his wife with the cooking, and goes jogging in a desultory way as his tailor tells him he is bulging at the seems. That he ends up by having a good tuck-in at the dosa shop when no one is looking, after making a brave offer to live off salads while his sons breakfast off parathas, add to the realism of the serial. May we say thank you, again, Wagle? I am not quite sure what Nutan Manmohan is aiming at with her series of programmes on ex-Prime Ministers. If it is meant to be archives stuff, then it is futile attempting it in 22 minutes. And in any case, one must have a pattern to such programmes. I found the programme on V.P. Singh very disjointed. It hopped from subject to subject, one had a fleeting glimpse of his paintings and then a mention of Do Bigha Zameen as his favourite film, but there was no follow-up. The programme reverted to brief question-and-answer sessions on politics. And one felt that both the sequence and the editing were at fault. The programme with Chandra Shekhar was much more coherent, being more chronological, and better shaped. But again, too many questions and answers fragmented the programme. In the end, I felt that Tavleen Singh has done all this before and with much more finesse, because Tavleen is a very experienced political commentator, while Nutan is not. I am looking forward to more interesting people on Vir Sanghvi’s new interview programme. I think making a beginning with Amitabh Bachchan, who is a much interviewed person and has said all of it before, and with two programmes at that, did not give the series a very good start. What all interview programmes must avoid is the same personalities over and over again. If Simi Garewal has not done them before, Rajat Sharma has and so has Rajiv Shukla. And so has Rajiv Mehrotra, in a much more serious way. Not to speak of Parajoy Guha-Thakurta. And so it goes. One looks forward to interview programmes which go a little off the beaten track because the personalities are already well known. So even an experienced interviewer like Vir Sanghvi might be hard put to ask anything new or get anything original in the way of answers. The Indian viewer is a little jaded with the same old faces. Now that DD has sorted out its differences and will show us some matches from the World Cup, one can only hope that it will put its advertising policy in order. Although the privileged viewer will have a better alternatives on a satellite channel, the terrestrial and other viewers to DD’s sports relays have been driven up a tree with DD’s callous, unimaginative and senseless policy of thrusting in advertisements at the most crucial parts of the match. This not only cuts off commentators between overs, robbing him of the triumphant exit of the winning team and most of the prize-giving ceremony and generally depriving him of the finer points of the game. If DD cannot afford to give the viewer the sort of relay he wants, it should stop bidding for international sports events and leave it to the professionals who operate the international sports channels to give the viewer his due. Tailpiece: So Harish
Awasthy, the only DG (News) who is qualified to hold that
post in Doordarshan, has been transferred again. The loss
is always Doordarshan’s. I think we should check up
whether he can compete with Arun Bhatia of Pune fame to
see who has had more transfers. And for pretty much the
same reasons, but with less publicity. |
Babbar Akali conspiracy case NINETY-ONE accused have been committed to take their trial for murder, dacoity and allied offences before the Sessions Judge of Lahore in both the main and supplementary Babbar Akali conspiracy cases. Of the five discharged,
four are likely to be re-arrested under Section 26 or 212
(IPC) for harbouring the alleged conspirators. A fuller
report will appear later. |
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