P A G E
Monday, January 18, 1999
today's calendar
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E D I T O R I A L P A G E |
Monday, January 18, 1999 |
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spotlight today's calendar |
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Merit
must prevail
PLAYING
WITH OIL COMPANIES
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Conversions:
debate then and now
‘Iftaar
mania’ on the decline
Right
message goes home
Fatal
accident near Poona |
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Merit must prevail PRESIDENT K. R. Narayanan is reported to have suggested to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in November last year: "It would be consonant with constitutional principles and the nation's social objectives if persons belonging to weaker sections of society, who comprise 25 per cent of the population, and women, are given due consideration” in senior judicial appointments, according to a leading weekly. Mr Narayanan has also observed that "eligible persons from these categories are available and their under-representation and non-representation would not be justifiable". The Union Law Minister, who forwarded the comments of the President to the Chief Justice of India, supported the point of view of the Head of State, adding personally: "I am for reservation. The spirit of the Constitution should be followed in all fields, including the Judiciary". Chief Justice A. S. Anand has gone on record with these words: "All eligible candidates, including those belonging to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, are considered by us while recommending names for appointment as Supreme Court judges." The Chief Justice has, however, clarified his statement thus: "Our Constitution envisages that merit alone is the criterion for all appointments to the Supreme Court and the High Courts. And we are scrupulously adhering to these provisions.... An unfilled vacancy may not cause as much harm as a wrongly filled vacancy." Having supported the idea
of the empowerment of socially weak people, we have
consistently pleaded for respect and benefits for the
under-privileged. However, we do not call Mr Narayanan a
"Dalit President"; we hold him in high esteem
not as a person from a particular community but as the
President of India. This has been our attitude to great
men from Dr B. R. Ambedkar to Dr D. Ram (the reputed
medical scientist) of Patna. The Chief Justice has spoken
well and whatever he has said is in the right spirit of
the Constitution. In the statute book, we have the same
prescribed system of parliamentary executive as the
British have. The Council of Ministers, consisting as it
does of the members of the legislature, is like the
British Cabinet, "a hyphen which joins, a buckle
which fastens the legislative part of the State to the
Executive part." The Law Minister is a part of the
Cabinet and his expression in the context of judicial
appointments does matter enormously. The President
appoints the Chief Justice and other judges of the higher
Judiciary. He knows well that the core of commitment to
the social revolution lies in parts III and IV of the
Constitution, in the Fundamental Rights and in the
Directive Principles of State Policy. If Parliament and
the Judiciary, besides the Executive, are agreed on this,
there would be no conflict between them. If the weekly's
report is entirely correct, there is the possibility of a
conflict between the Head of State and the chief of the
Judiciary, who speaks out the truth with undiminishable
profundity: "All eligible candidates are considered;
merit alone is the criterion for all appointments to the
Supreme Court and the High Courts." Mr Justice Anand
has reacted with rectitude to a question with regard to
the President's "comments". There should be no
compromise on merit as there should be no dithering with
regard to the empowerment of the weaker sections of
society. |
Mamata-Samata open duel IT has so far been spoken in murmurs; now it is official. Ms Mamata Banerjee has warned the BJP-led coalition: give my party the Railways portfolio or else. And the Samata party, which now holds it, has denounced her demand, making its claim to the ministry non-negotiable. BJP chief Kushabhau Thakre tried to play the referee but his heart was with the Samata and for that reason received a withering rebuke from the lady. Not only has Ms Banerjee staked her all on getting the particular portfolio, she has also read out a chargesheet against the Centre, administered a snub by cancelling a meeting with the Prime Minister and unsubtly hinted that she may pull out of the coalition. The probable date is February 10, and the venue a public meeting. She may yet change her mind but as of now has created a full-blown crisis for the Prime Minister. Newspaper reports talk of her boiling over with rage at the perceived insult and blatant anti-West Bengal attitude. The stated provocation is the gentle chiding by the BJP chief that allotting ministries was the prerogative of the Prime Minister and she should quietly accept whatever he gave her with best of intentions. The unstated cause for the anger is the over-eagerness of her former number two, Mr Ajit Panja, to get into the Cabinet no matter what the job is. She is convinced that efforts are on to wean away Mr Panja and weaken her hold. What has irritated further is the contempt the Bengal unit of the BJP, particularly the President Tapan Sikdar, has shown her. She thus sees hostility in everything and is positioning herself to hit out. Right now it is quits for Ms Banerjee and even Mr George Fernandes cannot mollify her. That he belongs to the Samata only adds to his difficulties. Saturday delivered yet
another blow at the coalition government. The Samata not
only needled the fiery lady from Calcutta but also closed
any option the Prime Minister may have. Until now Railway
Minister Nitish Kumar has taken the position that the
decision about his Ministry is entirely that of the Prime
Minister. The meeting of the party MPs has radically
changed that; now the party is in no mood to compromise.
For good measure, it made two further points. One, it is
a bigger party than Mamata’s and that it was silly
on the part of the lady in question to covet something it
had. What is intriguing is that the party showed
remarkable unity after weeks of open bickering and
ominous threats of a split. Two, the party asked a
virulent critic of Mr Nitish Kumar and Mr Fernandes to
brief the press and he did it in style. In all this, Mr
Thakre played a characteristically maladroit role. He
spoke out of turn and in a patronising tone in telling Ms
Banerjee to virtually drop her demand and asking her to
thrash out the problem in private with the Prime
Minister. The upshot of it all is to make the already
complicated task of expanding and reshuffling the Cabinet
impossible. The Prime Minister is facing great pressure
from his own party ranks, with some aspirants darkly
hinting of leaving the party if not revolting against the
leadership. One pet theory of the coalition government so
tirelessly espoused by the BJP now stands exposed as
unworkable. It used to say that if the big party heads
the alliance, everything will fall in place. The
experience of the past ten months proves that the
arrangement will fall — in line or out of line. |
New twist to Iraqi crisis THE crisis in Iraq is gradually taking a new turn. An indication of this development, which is likely to have far-reaching consequences, has been available after President Saddam Hussein’s call to the Arab masses on January 5 to overthrow the regimes working for the success of the Anglo-US scheme against Iraq. He probably wanted to exploit the growing anti-American feeling among the Arab people to warn the US-friendly regimes in the region to dissociate themselves from the Anglo-American campaign against Iraq. Mr Hussein may not succeed in this objective, as is clear from the statement issued by six Gulf Cooperation Council member-countries after their latest meeting on January 14. But he has definitely created a kind of fear among the pro-US Arab rulers that if the plight of the Iraqi people continues to remain as it is, anti-Americanism may take the form of a powerful wave against the supporters of the Anglo-US axis vis-a-vis Iraq, triggering off a political upheaval in the area. Hence the renewed efforts to prove that the Iraqis are suffering because of the misadventures of Mr Hussein, and the call to the UN to lift the curbs on the Iraqi oil sales. The other day Saudi Arabia and Egypt urged the Iraqis to overthrow the Saddam regime if they wanted an end to their ordeal. The Egyptian Foreign Minister, who represented his country in this war of words, described Mr Hussein as a “shame” on the Arab world, while the official Saudi Press Agency released a political commentary terming the Iraqi leader as a “tyrant”, exhorting the Iraqis to rise in revolt against him. After this has come the report that Saudi Arabia is endeavouring for the lifting of the UN trade embargo on Baghdad on humanitarian grounds. Saudi Arabia brought its proposal before the recent GCC meeting though it did not find favour immediately. It has also plans to bring the matter at the January 24 Arab League Foreign Ministers’ meeting to be held in Cairo. The idea is to enable Iraq to purchase as much medicines and food as required from the international market to lessen the suffering of the people of Iraq. This, the Saudis perhaps calculate, may blunt the new-found weapon of Mr Saddam Hussein. Lately, the USA too has
joined Saudi Arabia in its strategic drive though only to
the extent of eliminating the ceiling on the revenue from
Iraqi oil sales. The US-Saudi plan is, however, unlikely
to fructify to the desired extent as Iraq has been
incapacitated to increase its oil exports. The US policy
on Iraq is showing signs of collapse on the UNSCOM
(United Nations Special Commission) issue too. There is
no shift on the French stance, and Russia continues to
insist that UNSCOM should be replaced with a new
long-term monitoring mechanism to prevent Iraq from
developing nuclear or biological weapons, and that the
USA should not be allowed to play a dominating role. The
Russian stand formed part of a seven-point proposal
submitted by its UN representative at the Security
Council on January 15 to break the stand-off between the
USA and Iraq after the four-day US-UK air strikes last
month. The USA finds itself in a different situation
after the declaration of UN chief Kofi Annan that
Washington has been using UNSCOM for spying purposes as
part of its own agenda. This also gave a fillip to
anti-Americanism among the Arabs in general. Mr Saddam
Hussein could not have thought of acquiring a better
shield to safeguard his rule. |
PLAYING WITH OIL COMPANIES ONE doesn't know if Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has any plan to drop Petroleum Minister Vazhapady Ramamurthy from the Cabinet because his ally, Ms J.Jayalalitha, wants him out. As it is, he has been playing havoc with the oil sector. His antics have now become very serious. They, in fact, threaten to overtake the damage done by some of his predecessors. First, he tried to force the public sector Indian Oil Corporation to sign a deal to lift products from Reliance's proposed Jamnagar refinery at terms which were detrimental to the former's interests and completely loaded in favour of the latter. To cite just one point in the proposed contract, if the IOC fails to pick up Reliance's output, it will have to pay a huge fine. But if the commercial giant decides not to honour its commitment to the IOC, it will have to pay just half this amount at a time. If the project has still not taken off, it is thanks to the efforts of some bureaucrats in the ministry, including the Joint Secretary, Mr Nirmal Singh. Though he is now due to go back to his parent cadre soon, he has already been removed from the boards of oil companies such as the IOC, HPCL and BPCL. A reward, indeed. The threat of adverse publicity from his political rivals also thwarted Mr Ramamurthy's plans to get the nationalised oil companies to contribute around Rs 3 crore towards setting up schools in his Salem constituency. In this and other cases, he could mobilise some willing bureaucrats to force the oil companies to act at his bidding. It must be said that the oil companies were only too anxious to oblige the minister from the oil pool account. In this context, the floating of an education fund was to be announced at a function in his constituency some months ago. Invitation cards had been issued in the name of Indian Oil's Regional Coordinator for the southern region. All the oil company chiefs had agreed to be present at the function and announce their donations. But that was not to be. And it is once again these very bureaucrats who are now calling up the oil companies to ensure that Mr Ramamurthy's favourites get the lion's share of $ 300-odd oil dealership, including petrol pumps and LPG outlets which are now going to be filled up. First, the Petroleum Ministry tried to ensure that, wherever possible, retired judges who were to head the three-member selection benches were its nominees. They then appointed two oil company officials in each bench. With the judge having just 100 points, 86 compared to the oil company's 200, it is obvious that the judges are only meant to provide some dignity to the entire process of selection. All that the ministry has to do, and is said to be doing, according to petrified company officials, is to call them up and instruct them on who is to get which outlet. And when the oil companies suggested that a system of lots should be introduced to select the final candidate once a basic shortlist was drawn up for each dealership, the ministry turned this down. Since the amounts involved in terms of the premia that people are willing to pay to get these retail outlets run into hundreds of crores, we're back to the kind of a situation where there is almost a fixed rate for each outlet—Rs 1 crore for a petrol pump in a metro, Rs 20 lakh for an LPG outlet and so on. The IOC is slated to appoint around 4,200 dealers, BPCL 600, HPCL around 450 and IBP around 50. In fact, so rampant was corruption earlier that there were even "going" rates for appointments to the bench as well. Earlier, apart from retired judges, the benches had two eminent local citizens on their board. Since eminence like beauty lies in the eyes of those making such appointments, the scope for corruption was enormous. With this kind of manipulation possible in the captive oil companies, Mr Ramamurthy as well as his partners in the bureaucracy, understandably, would not like these lucrative units to escape their clutches. Which is why the ministry has been delaying its approval for independent directors which will confer the "Navratna" status on these companies, and will also considerably free them from day-to-day interference from the ministry. The minister has also used every conceivable occasion to prevent the process of disinvestment of government shareholding in these companies. If actually privatised, a major cash-cow will no longer be available for milking. So, when the Finance Ministry proposed and the Cabinet concurred with a proposal to go ahead with just partial disinvestment in some of the public sector undertakings (PSUs) this year, Mr Ramamurthy came up with an absurd counter-proposal. "You want money," he argued with the Finance Ministry, "I'll give it to you." So, while the government was looking forward to getting a couple of thousand crores from selling some shares of companies like the IOC, Mr Ramamurthy has now come up with a proposal which will provide just Rs 6,000 crores to the exchequer. The IOC will pick up 10 per cent of the government's share-holding in the ONGC. The ONGC will do the same in the IOC. GAL will pick up part of the government's shareholding in some other companies and so on. None of this makes any commercial sense. What sense, for example, does it make for the ONGC to spend a couple of thousand crores in the IOC? It can't be for returns, because investing in fixed deposits would give it higher returns. Nor does it help to eventually merge with the IOC or the ONGC and create one huge integrated oil company of the Exxon type. Apart from the fact that it does not make much sense, the truth is that the boards of these oil companies have not even discussed any such possibility, leave alone studying its implications. The ministry was just looking for another way for giving the Finance Ministry some money. So it ordered the boards to come up with a solution. A solution was suggested, and the supine board rubber-stamped it. How supine the boards are became clear when ONGC chief B.C.Bora finally gave the figures and details of the proposed cross-holding to the Press. Ironically, he was not in the least embarrassed, but tried to pass it off as some major financial and strategic wizardry! If Prime Minister Vajpayee is serious about running the country, he must put an end to this kind of systemic loot going on in the country. Merely replacing one Ramamurthy by another will not change things. Sure, it will probably take the next man a few months to understand how to do his work. To be fair to Mr Vajpayee and his predecessors, there is, of course, no way they could have known about these goings-on since the oil companies keep their cards close to their chest. The ministry does not question them how they are running their companies, or how they are running valuable oilfields. The way the ONGC is doing, for example, and in turn gets it do its bidding. All very comfortable. Of course, all possible distortions thrived under the system of controls and the administered price mechanism (APM). After all, the oil companies were protected from everything. Any investment made, no matter how incorrect, was accepted at face value, and the companies were guaranteed a 12 per cent post-tax return on that. Now that the APM has been dismantled, the cosy partnership will no longer be so easy. It will be interesting to see if the oil companies will continue to allow themselves to be manipulated silently. And if they don't, it will be instructive to see how the government reacts. Indeed, the moot question
is: what kind of autonomy do we propose to give to the
public sector units? The Prime Minister needs to have a
close look at the seamy side of the functioning of the
Petroleum Ministry. It is in the nation's interests that
he should launch operation clean-up in this vital sector
of the economy. Transparency in the work of the oil
sector can make all the difference and minimise the
revenue loss to the national exchequer. |
Towards integrated transport
policy THE Prime Minister’s recent announcement that an integrated transport policy will be unveiled in the near future has not come a day too soon. Congested roads and clogged rail systems have already slowed down the economic growth. The transport scenario is undergoing a seachange due to increased industrialisation, urbanisation and globalisation. In a well-organised transport system, not only should we optimally link roadways, railways and waterways with the ports but also provide for a viable urban transport. This calls for an integrated energy-cum-transport planning. Transport claims a major share of energy, especially the petroleum products. The reduction in the railways share — from 88 per cent to 38 per cent in freight and from 68 per cent to 13 per cent in passenger traffic — over the past 50 years has meant a corresponding rise in the share of energy. Why have we allowed the cheaper and cleaner railways to decline in favour of costlier and pollution-prone road transport? Why have we not tapped the vast potential of coastal and inland water transport which is least energy-intensive? Why didn’t we switch over to atomic energy which has higher initial investment but very marginal running cost as against the dearer thermal power? After all, we stood pledged to the peaceful uses of nuclear energy in the era heralded by Pokhran-I Pokhran-II. Experts opine that the fast-breeder reactor technology is capable of indigenously producing 3 lakh MW of energy as against our present production of less than 1 lakh MW from all resources, the atomic energy contributing a measly 2 per cent. Should we go in for atomic energy in a big way like France, Sweden, Japan and the USA, we would release a sizeable rail transport capacity. The power-house coal accounts for about 40 per cent of railway freight today. Rail transport being six time more energy-efficient than road transport, we can achieve a 50 per cent reduction in energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions if the future modal splits are channelised in favour of the railways. Air transport being the highest emitter of carbon dioxide, we need to encourage high-speed luxury travel by Shatabdi and Rajdhani-type train services. Whereas the excitement over the proposed North-South and East-West expressways is understandable, one should pause and ponder if the future transport needs can be met by the expansion of the rail network. A single rail track can carry as much traffic as 10 lanes of an expressway. And most of the single rail track can be “doubled” without acquiring more land, whereas four-or six-laning of expressways would entail massive land acquisition, a prohibitively costly and litigious proposition. Our rail and road systems make for an interesting study in contrasts inasmuch as the former is a highly regulated and centralised government department whereas the latter lives in a laissez faire world. If the railways remain saddled with an archaic freight fare structure, social obligations, subsidies and parliamentary control, the unregulated road transport is given to cartelisation, profiteering and arbitrariness of the worst kind. A road authority regulatory is a sine qua non. So is the long overdue replacement of the traditional truck by a multi-axle one. Reforms in all the modes of transport are long overdue. Coming to the urban transport, I personally prefer the versatile bus, given our socio-economic conditions and the pattern of growth and development of our metros. We must provide good roads and good buses to ensure a reliable and efficient urban transport service with which is directly linked the socio-economic productivity of the commuting community. To illustrate the point, if 5000 commuters lose one productive hour every day due to inefficient urban transport, and if this translates into a per head production loss of Rs 20 the gross loss can be pegged at Rs 3.65 crore a year! Rail-based urban transport for the future metros should form part of overall (sub) urban planning. It is a good idea to pedestrianise selected streets where cycles may be permitted to ply during pre-determined hours. The government has done well to grant infrastructure status to the railways, waterways and ports. But how to attract private investment in this “public goods” sector, characterised by high sunk costs, long gestation periods and regulatory pricing, remains a puzzle. Live as we do in uncertain times, we must come up with a perspective plan paper, “Multimodal Transport — (2000-2020)”. Given the state of our
capital markets, debt finance is the only way out. This
calls for substantial reforms in the debt market. Private
investments may not be forthcoming in the initial years
of such projects. Once the project becomes commercially
viable, the government may choose the disinvestment
route, as they did for CONCOR. |
Right
message goes home WE had not comprehended that our new boss would turn out to be a very difficult person to deal with. Without giving the staff an opportunity to “understand” or “know” him well, he started showing his colours, so to say, right from day one itself. Being a product of a foreign university and having served some of the prestigious organisations abroad, he wanted to “restructure” the office on the pattern of the establishments he was associated with and was keen to introduce “new work culture” among the staff. The staff had no quarrel with the boss’s plans and was willing to give a fair trial to them. But what upset the staff was the boss’s uneven moods, nasty utterances, bouts of anger and tantrums. Everyday there were new tensions, so much so that a stage had reached where things were getting beyond everybody’s endurance. We had two options: either to submit meekly to the boss’s whims and fancies or make an effort to “tame” him. The majority favoured the latter. As different proposals were being debated upon, I had casually suggested that we should “tackle” the boss through his wife. There was no logic behind my suggestion, but still everybody fell for it. After days of deliberations, it was decided that a cultural evening be organised and the boss’s wife should be asked to be the chief guest. Half the battle was won when the lady accepted our invitation without giving even a second thought. The lady arrived for the show quite early. She moved freely among the staff and their family members and exchanged pleasantries with them. The boss only shadowed her. As the programme of songs, skits, dances, etc, progressed, two ladies from among the staff were asked to keep constant company with the chief guest. The idea was to pay extra attention to her. The climax of the cultural evening was a specially written skit portraying the character of a new boss who wanted to “restructure” the office with “impractical” plans. The boss was furious but his wife enjoyed every bit of the skit. The boss was again furious, when while proposing a vote of thanks, the chief guest was praised for her pleasing personality and cheerful disposition. The lady, however, was really delighted. The staff had expected that the boss would be in a very nasty mood the next day, and feared that he might take disciplinary action against some. But to everybody’s surprise he was exceptionally in a very cheerful mood. We were further surprised when through a circular he thanked the staff for organising such a “lively” evening and expressed the hope that in future also there would be more of such functions because these “help in creating better understanding among the staff, in particular, the seniors and juniors. It seemed the “message” had gone home well. Even I had not thought that a suggestion made in a very casual manner would work.
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Conversions: debate then and now
“THE question of minorities everywhere,” said Govind Ballabh Pant in the Constituent Assembly, in one of the very first acts of Constitution-making, “looms large in constitutional discussions. Many a Constitution has foundered on this rock.” Spoken on January 24, 1947, while moving the resolution for setting up the Assembly’s Advisory Committee, Pant’s words typified the principal concern of the founding fathers throughout the three-year-long period of constitutional gestation. A concern restated recently by the nation’s top constitutional lawyer, Fali Nariman, when he returned the Gujarat government’s brief in the Narmada dam case in protest against the attacks on Christians in Gujarat. Proving in the process that lawyers are not all bread and butter. Transcending the constraints of office, Attorney General Soli Sorabjee joined Nariman yesterday in his Times of India column. Recalling the stirring words of the Supreme Court in the National Anthem case — “our tradition (said the court) teaches tolerance; our philosophy preaches tolerance; our Constitution practises tolerance; let us not dilute it” — Soli flayed the rabid fanaticism and the crass intolerance of minorities that has surfaced in the country. But let us get back to the founding fathers, the constitutional Vedas. The debate on conversions which Prime Minister Vajpayee, ideologically handcuffed by his own party, has recommended, already stands conducted long ago. Headed by Sardar Patel, the Advisory Committee constituted in January, 1947 drew up an interim report on fundamental rights. The report was presented to the Constituent Assembly on April 29 the same year. Clauses 13 to 17 of the report dealt with rights relating to religion. Clause 13 — the precursor of Article 25 of the Constitution — guaranteed freedom of conscience to all persons, and the right freely to profess, practice and propagate religion subject to public order, morality and health and to other fundamental rights. Clause 17 read: “Conversion from one religion to another brought about by coercion or undue influence shall not be recognised by law.” Debated by the Constituent Assembly on May 1, Clause 13 was readily adopted. However, K.M. Munshi’s proposal to amend Clause 17 so as to enlarge its scope and prohibit, in addition, all conversions — and not merely conversions by force or fraud — of minors below 18 years of age, provoked an angry controversy. Apart from others for and against, B.R. Ambedkar strongly assailed Munshi’s proposal, saying that a bar on children being converted while permitting voluntary conversion by adults, would “lead to many disruptions”. On Patel’s suggestion, in view of the “heat” generated and the matter being not “free from difficulties”, the clause was referred back to the Advisory Committee for reconsideration. On further consideration, Patel told Assembly President Rajendra Prasad on August 25, submitting the Advisory Committee’s supplementary report on fundamental rights, it “seems to us” that the clause “enunciates a rather obvious doctrine which it is unnecessary to include in the Constitution and we recommend that it be dropped altogether.” The recommendation was accepted by the Assembly five days later. Renumbered as Article 19 (now Article 25), the other clause, Clause 13, was debated again by the Constituent Assembly on December 3 and 6, 1948. At the heart of the debate was the right to “propagate” religion. In no Constitution of the world is the right to propagate religion a fundamental right, said Lokanath Misra, leading the charge. We have no quarrel with Christ or Mohammed but the cry of religion is a dangerous cry. It denominates, divides and encamps people to warring ways. “Propagation” in Article 19 can only mean paving the way for the complete annihilation of Hindu culture, the Hindu way of life and manners. “Civilisation is going headlong to the melting pot. Let us beware and try to survive.” Drop the word. The Indian Christian community happens to be the most inoffensive community in the whole of India, answered Pandit Lakshmi Kanta Maitra. Propagation does not necessarily mean seeking converts by force of arms, by the sword. If by exposition, illustration and persuasion, you can convey your religious faith to others, what is the harm? The fact that many people in this country have embraced Christianity, said T.T. Krishnamachari, supporting the Article, is due partly to the status that it gave to them. An untouchable who became a Christian became an equal in every matter with the high-caste Hindu, and if we remove the need to obtain that particular advantage, the incentive for anybody to become a Christian will not probably exist. But it was K.M. Munshi who finally won the Constituent Assembly over in favour of propagation. The inclusion of the word, he said, was a compromise with the minorities and he was a party to the compromise from the very beginning. It was on this word that the Indian Christian community laid the greatest emphasis, not because they wanted to convert people aggressively, but because propagation was a fundamental part of their tenet. Even if the word was not there, it would be open to any religious community to persuade other people to join their faith under the right of freedom of speech. “So long as religion is religion (he said), conversion by free exercise of the conscience has to be recognised.” The word “propagate” is nothing very much out of the way as some people think, nor is it fraught with dangerous consequences. Have a debate, if you
will, Mr Prime Minister, but let first the nation be told
what the founding fathers said and did. |
‘Iftaar mania’ on the decline
JUST a few days left for the month of Ramzan to end and there you have the top politicians hosting ‘iftaar’ feasts. On January 15, the day of my filing this column, is the “iftaar” hosted by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and the following day will be the one hosted by Congress President Sonia Gandhi. And though it would be premature to come up with comments at this stage but as the previous ‘political’ iftaars even these would be pure political exercises. Solid good food, lots of talks and eyes hovering all over to spot those present and taking note of those who’s who not to be witnessed. However, this year there seems to be some sort of a decline in the “iftaar” mania. I remember “iftaar” feasts were hosted with absolute frenzy just after the Babri Masjid demolition so much so that one particular BJP leader whose name is closely linked to that demolition also hosted an “iftaar” and so did the then Prime Minister, Mr PV Narasimha Rao, (though the “iftaar” hosted by him that year turned out to be a damp squib as it was on obvious public relations exercise and except for the long list of Congressmen there were few other guests). And in the previous years even the West Asian diplomats posted in New Delhi hosted these feasts, but this year one hasn’t received a single invite, at least till date. In fact one of the most lavish of such feasts that I had attended was at the Iraqi ambassador’s official residence. (An absolutely magnificent mansion on Aurangzeb Road and it is said it was given at the behest of Pt Jawahar Lal Nehru to the first Iraqi Ambassador posted to India in the ‘50s). Anyway, let’s not digress from the “iftaar” path. Today another “iftaar” (besides the one hosted by the PM) is being hosted by the erstwhile royal family of Rampur and I am told the chief guest is Delhi Chief Minister Shiela Dikshit. Good hosts? Senior officials of the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) were not to be found in their offices the whole of Friday. Reason? — they were playing good hosts to the 19 Pakistani officials who reached New Delhi on January 14 by the special bus service from Lahore. “Jee nahin, aaj aap ko office mein koi nahin milega... DTC ke senior officers Pakistani group members ke saath hain — they have to take them to meet the Chief Minister, then take them out shopping, accompany them to meet other officials, also take them to the mosque to say their Friday prayers...” informs the Private Secretary of a DTC official. And if you ask about the safety of the bus that has got them here and has to make a return journey back to Lahore on January 17 one is told that it is parked at the IP depot and its safety and that of these official passengers is being handled by the Ministry of Home Affairs. And with threats from Shiv Sainiks on the rise Hotel Intercontinental, where these passengers are staying, seems surrounding by the police force, with round the clock security. Anjana Mishra Talking about security, what to talk of protection being provided for a bus when the government cannot even provide security to the recently “gangraped” woman — Anjana Mishra. Needless to repeat, trouble for Anjana started about 18 months back, soon after she wanted to break free from the marriage bondage with her IAS (Orissa cadre) husband. In fact, it was in the connection to plea for divorce that she had gone to the official residence of the Orissa Attorney General Indrajit Ray who, as stated by her, made attempts to rape her. And now comes the news of gangrape on her. This time she has openly blamed Orissa CM JB Patnaik as one of the accused and sources state that to ensure the case doesn’t get hushed up she would be here in the capital by this weekend. And yesterday when I got in touch with the former NCW Chairperson, Ms Mohini Giri, who had pursued Anjana’s case right from day one (that is after her alleged rape by the Orissa AG) she was of the view that crime against women were absolutely on the rise in Orissa, with the guilty seldom caught as they are protected by their connections and nexuses. Iraqi crisis deepens Problems for Iraq may increase now, after six Gulf states have raised the demand for the removal of Iraqi President Saddam Husain. Last week in a national broadcast Saddam Husain had urged the Arab people to “throw out bad rulers” and now it seems it is the turn of those rulers to press for his ouster from the Iraqi scene. And when I asked the Iraqi Charge d’ Affaires the names of those particular countries which have suddenly emerged with this demand he plays diplomatic and sidelines the issue by simply saying “the Arab people know which these six countries are, for they are the only ones being governed by bad rulers” But unofficial sources state that those countries that Saddam Husain is upset with (for obvious reasons — for towing the US — UK line) are Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Egypt. Tailpiece When I had asked the wife
of Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat whether she is a Communist
Party card-holder she quipped. “If I was a Communist
Party card-holder I wouldn’t have named my son
Jawahar!” |
Fatal accident near Poona WHILE a party of Sappers and Miners were at work on the pontoon they were throwing across the river near the Holkar’s bridge on Wednesday morning, five men and a Jamadar fell into the river as a result of the plank on which they were standing giving way. The five men were rescued,
but the Jamadar, Lalloo Rajana, appears to have been
swept away, and was unable to swim. The river now is
flowing rather high. A search for the body was made, but
it was not till yesterday evening that it was found some
distance below the scene of the accident. |
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