P A G E
Saturday, July 3, 1999
today's calendar
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E D I T O R I A L P A G E |
Saturday, July 3, 1999 |
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Deserving
rebuke
NUCLEAR
BLACKMAIL |
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Pakistan’s Aakhri
Badla a disaster
Channels
galore in City of Joy
The
holiday habit
Self-Government Resolution |
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THE resolution passed overwhelmingly by a US congressional committee calling on Pakistan to stop interfering in Kashmir is non-binding in nature but is yet another strong indicator as to which way the wind is blowing in Washington. It is obvious that the US attitude is hardening by the day in the face of Paksitani intransigence. Not only has the committee rebuked Islamabad because “the Pakistan army , intelligence service and the government have moved thousands of men and material up to the Pakistan side of the Line of Control and sent hundreds of army regulars across the line”, it has also directly castigated it for the earlier trouble that it had been fomenting in India. In a statement after a vote on the resolution, the House International Relations Committee Chairman, Mr Benjamin Gilman, asserted categorically that “the government of Pakistan has previously supported terrorism in India. This latest incident, however, is far beyond the murder of innocent civilians on a train or at a wedding party”. Rarely has Pakistan been criticised in such strong words. Significantly, an amendment asking India and Pakistan to hold a plebiscite in Jammu and Kashmir has been rejected 8-20. This change in tone and perception has come about because of the worldwide revulsion against terrorism and the belated and grudging realisation that Pakistan is one of the most dangerous exporters of this malaise. Since the support for India is fairly wide and cuts across party lines, there is a strong possibility that not only will the House pass the resolution but may even go beyond it. The congressional panel has already approved an amendment to the Gilman resolution urging President Clinton to oppose the grant of loans by international financial institutions, including the World Bank and the IMF, to Pakistan until it withdraws its forces from the Indian side of the LoC. There is extreme
jitteriness in this regard in Islamabad. The cutting
short of Mr Nawaz Sharif’s China visit has also to
be seen in this light. The Financial Times quotes
high-level Paksitani officials as saying that although
the next IMF tranche —- which is scheduled to be
disbursed as early as next week —- is a modest loan
of between $ 100 million and $ 300 million, its blockade
could lead to possible unravelling of other agreements
signed by Pakistan to stave off an impending foreign debt
crisis. The problem with Pakistan is that because of the
supremacy of the defence forces, the voices of reason get
drowned. Despite the bravado shown by the generals, the
Pakistani government is rattled by its precarious
financial position and the almost unanimous global
criticism that it has had to face over its misadventure.
It is not only the USA which has called a spade a spade.
Other countries like China and the UK have been equally
forthright. Its “modern rogue army” must be
reined in at the earliest because rogue elephants have a
history of trampling upon their own ranks. Islamabad is
in no position to recover from such self-inflicted
wounds. |
Poll: right decision WITH the Election Commission's announcement on Friday that the Lok Sabha poll will be held at the stipulated time, speculations about the postponement of the vital democratic process have been set at rest. The Lower House of Parliament will be constituted before October 20, honouring the provisions of the Constitution with regard to the electoral dispensation. The process of finalising the schedule will begin after detailed discussions are held by the Election Commissioners with major national parties on Saturday. Too much of needless emphasis has been given to the dangers supposedly emanating from the Kargil situation. The parties which have been invited by the Chief Election Commissioner for the meeting include the BJP, the Congress, the CPI, the CPI(M), the JD and the BSP. Predictably, the deliberations will endorse the national will to put a firm, resolute and representative government in place at the Centre. Dr M. S. Gill has promptly asked the Chief Secretaries, Directors-General of Police and Chief Electoral Officers from various states to assemble in Delhi on Monday (July 5) to discuss the details of the poll programme and the ground realities visualised futuristically. The most heartening aspect of the announcement is the clear statement made on behalf of the people to the effect that the nation is totally unafraid and ready to take aberrations like Pakistani intrusions in its stride. It will, however, be difficult to meet the deadline for the complete revision of the electoral rolls; it is July 21. About 15 million new
voters are expected to be added to the existing list. The
electors totalled 600 million before the revision process
started. Assam, Bihar and Jammu and Kashmir are
noticeable snails. Among the fast runners are Madhya
Pradesh, the north-eastern states and, to a certain
extent, U.P. The list emerging at the right time will not
be far short of the expectations. The country will go to
the polls in September-October with full arrangements.
The security bandobast may not be as spectacularly
awesome this time as it was during the last two
elections. People have known the strength and the
weakness of the system of governance. Coalition
experiments have made them wiser and they, we hope, will
themselves guard their interests with wisdom and caution.
Jammu and Kashmir is facing a difficult situation and a
separate schedule may have to be worked out for the state
in view of the disturbances caused by Pakistan. The
meaning of the mandate should be viewed in its totality.
This time there will be a close, collective watch on the
crime-politics nexus. There will also be a search for a
clear mandate for the fulfilment of national objectives. |
Naga lottery scam THE Comptroller and Auditor General's report on the irregularities committed in the running of the Nagaland State Lottery reads like a chapter from Ripley's "Believe It or Not". If indeed the CAG has detected irregularities to the tune of Rs 24,000 crore in the conduct of the Nagaland lottery, they would easily qualify for the collective title of "mother of all scams". Bofors would not even show up against the lottery scam and the financial irregularities committed by Harshad Mehta would be dismissed as minor trespasses. Suddenly the income tax authorities, the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Economic Offences are interested in the antecedents and businesses of Mr Mani Kumar Subba, who until the other day was a low profile Congress member of Parliament from Assam. Now that he has emerged as the main suspect in, perhaps, Independent India's biggest financial scam, the Congress would obviously like to destroy the political evidence linking him to the party. But that, of course, is not possible. Mr P. A. Sangma's rebellion has already put the Congress on the backfoot in the North-East and Mr Subba's murky political, personal and business deals would be explosive ammunition in the hands of the Opposition during the Lok Sabha elections. The CAG report, which is yet to be tabled in the Nagaland Assembly, categorically states that the " lottery did not meet the requirements [of the Supreme Court].It was state-authorised and not state-organised. Every opportunity was taken by the state to benefit the sole distributor at the expense of the state. Every conceivable transgression took place in the running of the lottery". Unfortunately for the Congress, the period covered by the special audit is the same when Mr S. C. Jamir was the Chief Minister of Nagaland. However, if the details
about Mr Subba's ill-gotten wealth and his criminal past
are found to be correct, a number of other agencies,
along with the Congress Government in Nagaland, will have
a lot of explaining to do. Among other things, the CBI is
investigating the citizenship of Mr Subba who has
properties in virtually every part of the North-East as
also in Delhi and Ghaziabad, where the registered office
of M. S. Associates, involved in the running of the
Nagaland lottery, is located. The "lottery
king" may turn out to be a dangerous criminal from
Nepal. He was sentenced to life imprisonment by a
Nepalese district court for having murdered his sister.
Another aspect connected with the lottery scam is the
possible funding of insurgency operations in Nagaland and
other regions of the North-East by Mr Subba through a
network of underground contacts. As far as the
irregularities associated with the running of the lottery
are concerned the CAG found sufficient evidence to
conclude that the firm was cheating both the
prize-winners and the state of their share of the money
collected through the sale of tickets. In 1997 the firm
illegally earned a mind-boggling amount of Rs 254 crore
by ignoring the 1997 Presidential ordinance against
single digit lotteries. In the light of the findings of
the CAG in the running of the Nagaland lottery the Centre
should consider the demand for a blanket ban on all forms
prize-money schemes based on chance not only because they
breed "Subbas" but also because it is the
social responsibility of the State to protect the
countless lottery-addicts from destroying themselves and
their families in the hope of hitting the jackpot. |
NUCLEAR
BLACKMAIL THE US Central Command Chief General Anthony Zinni and State Department official Gibson Lanpher went to Pakistan on June 24 to defuse tension between Indian and Pakistan over the Kargil issue. Around the same time Gen V.P. Malik, Chief of the Army Staff of the Indian Army, talked of taking the question of crossing the LoC to the Union Cabinet if necessary. Both countries are nuclear powers. It would appear as though war between the two is imminent. Should it come about, the question that needs to be answered is whether Pakistan world resort to the use of nuclear warheads? The economies of the developed countries are heavily dependent on access to fossil fuel. The strategic importance of West and Central Asia with their large oil deposits has considerably increased. Pakistan’s importance lies in its geostrategic location vis-a-vis the West and Central Asian regions, which are of strategic and economic importance to the Western Would. To that extent, US and the Western powers’ policies towards Pakistan are a factor which would impinge upon India’s security and the current crisis in Kargil. Pakistan has land borders with India. During the last five decades or so, ever since Pakistan’s birth, India and Pakistan have been neighbours but not friends. People’s Republic of China (PRC) has been propping up Pakistan to keep India bogged down in a conflict situation perpetually. China has ambitions to be a global power and would not like to see India emerging as a strong power and compete for resources and markets in Asia for economic growth. Though shrouded in secrecy, it is not difficult to assess Pakistan’s nuclear weapons capability in outline. Its bombs are based on enriched Uranium obtained from the AQ Khan Research Laboratory at Kahuta. The quantity of enriched Uranium would suggest that the number of weapons that may be derived out of it would be a dozen or so. The weapons are of the fission variety with yields in the region of 20 kilotons or so. Reproduced Plutonium will be available from the 40 MW heavy water research reactor at Khushab. Pakistan having acquired missile capability from abroad in the form of Hatf Ghaznavi and Ghauri systems has proven and reliable delivery systems. What is difficult to assess is how Pakistan views nuclear weapons. The number and variety of nuclear weapons and the delivery means available to Pakistan do not allow it to adopt anything other than a limited deterrence strategy against India. It appears Pakistan views her nuclear capability as the ultimate deterrent to neutralise India’s military superiority. There are perhaps a couple of other expectations in Islamabad from their possession of nukes:- (a) Its nuclear weapons will somehow allow an advantage in solution of the problem of the Jammu and Kashmir. This is on account of the belief that Indian cannot counter its support to insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir and enlarge the scene of conflict by crossing the international borders as it did in 1965. (b)The nuclear weapons provide probably the last and best opportunity to internationalise the Jammu and Kashmir question and through external mediation bring about a solution in its favour. The Kargil crisis has in all probability been created by Pakistan with this premise in mind. Pakistan poses a considerable nuclear threat to India. This is due to the exaggerated expectations entertained in that country, of the impact of her acquisition of nuclear weapons and the resultant exuberance in fostering the supporting terrorism and insurgency in the state of Jammu and Kashmir and creation of the crisis situation in the Kargil sector. The history of nuclear weapons reveals that, these have never been used by two states possessing nuclear weapons. In fact their possession by nations have had a sobering effect on the national leaders hitherto. The leaders of nations with nuclear weapons have behaved in a very responsible manner. There is no reason to believe that the national leaders both in India and Pakistan will not behave likewise. There is a general belief that nukes are weapons of mass destruction and should never be used. As the unsuitability of nukes in proactive situation becomes evident, there is bound to be a tonning down of this exuberance in Islamabad. Pakistan is probably making efforts to blackmail India to gain her objectives in Jammu and Kashmir. She is trying to play on the fears of the Western countries by highlighting the rationale of irrationality in the Kargil sector by dramatising the Kashmir issue. It must be appreciated that a mutual nuclear deterrent situation does not mean that India loses all options of conventional reaction in response to aggression by Pakistan by crossing the LoC in the Kargil sector. India’s options are intact. Our limitations are self imposed. We have to have the “will” to act decisively. Based on the overall analysis and keeping the national interests in view, if it is considered necessary, India should not hesitate from escalating the conflict by crossing the international borders to have the Kargil aggression vacated expeditiously and cause damage to Pakistan to prevent it from resorting to such acts in future. India currently occupies the moral high ground because of the restraint it has shown by limiting the operations without crossing the LoC. India can continue to do so in an escalated situation through its commitment to no-first-use of nuclear weapons. By sticking to its no-first-use assurance, India can pressurise the Western nations to see that Pakistan does not exercise her nuclear option. This can give India the opportunity to recapture its territory. India is an established democracy and has neither indulged in ethnic cleansing nor has committed aggression and the Western countries even if wanting to intervene will be constrained by these facts. (ADNI) (Major-General
Gera (retd) is Deputy Director, United Services Institute
(USI) and Editor of USI journals). |
Bravery sans recognition IT was on May 5 that the Indian troops first discovered the facts about the Pakistani incursions into the region between Mushkoh Valley, East of Gurez and Turtok, with active incursion involving Mushkoh Valley, Tiger Hill, Tololing, Kaksar, Kargil, Batalik, Jubar Hills, Chorbat La and Turtok. While in most of the regions it was to the tune of 7 kilometres deep in Batalik it was 20 km. Since then, till date fighting has been going on to evict the intruders, who all are, as claimed, Pakistani regular troops. In terms of duration, this fighting has been the longest continuous fight, to maintain the Indian national integrity, since 1948. The news coverage, including the television as well as newspaper reports of the Indian troops gallantly fighting to evict the intruding foreign troops, are being brought out daily. There are reports of the troops, literally, clawing their way up the precipices to involve themselves in hand-to-hand fights with the Pakistani soldiers, and successfully. Yet one finds that not a single gallantry award has been awarded. This is indeed strange when even for Operation Bluestar gallantry awards were given. This gives rise to the suspicion, in fact it confirms it, that the politico-bureaucratic nexus is deliberately denying the troops their due. The reason is simple, for then, in comparison, their own role in this entire imbroglio will suffer severe criticism. Yet the same nexus has not stopped from trying to profit from the sacrifices, the bloodletting of the soldiers, and each act being washed by the tears of their widows. A drive has been instituted to mobilise funds and woollen clothes for the troops. Something which is to be provided by the government . Of course the fact that the nexus has failed to provide the very basic clothing to the troops is now well known. There have been photographs of jawans moving forward in jungle (canvas) boots in the Kargil region. Surprisingly, India still cannot manufacture simple things like snowboots and they are to be imported, of course with due kickback! (According to the Ministry of Defence itself it is a minimum of 15%). The air force is still flying at the Fourth Pay Commission scales. Even out of this figure of Rs 1,200 the officer pays back the Government Rs 400 as income tax, and another Rs 1125/- as premium for his flying insurance. Thus he actually pays Rs 325 from his own pocket for the privilege of flying for the country and face the dangers of Stingers and anti - aircraft fire, apart from engine failures. The country could not even give them flares to counter the Stingers, simply because some DFA babu could not be satisfied as to their needs. Possibly the scope of kickbacks was not so attractive! There have also been reports that the troops do not even have proper steel helmets. In fact the steel helmets issued are of the Second World War vintage which are no protection against the high muzzle velocity modern weapons. Of course, it is unnatural to expect bulletproof vests. The weapons are of the sixties vintage and long since discarded by most of the armies, including Pakistan. The question of thermal imaging nightsights, so readily available to the Pakistani troops, just does not arise. The troops are dependent on the same gun which had been discarded by the political leadership for its own petty gains. Thus even this gun is at a premium. For the Indian establishment it appears that the soldier is just a statistic, a bit uncomfortable but just a statistic to be manipulated and profited from. It is indeed tragic that the poor soldier, today, to meet the policy requirements, is to fight in such a way that his very safety is under threat. Unlike the United States of America where for just three soldiers captured by Yugoslavia President Clinton went public with his threat of destroying Yugoslavia if any thing happened to the men, in India, there is a drive for the public to donate clothing for them as if they are to live on charity. Their widows are promised the moon, which we all know eventually lands in the heap of broken promises. The hard-earned funds from the public will end up in the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund which is used to further the political interests of the incumbent, and often misused since it faces no public audit. It is time the public, the media, the politico-bureaucratic nexus realised that the brave jawans who are giving their very lives for the safety, welfare and honour of their motherland are not beggars asking for alms. For God’s sake at least keep their dignity intact even if you cannot or do not want to give them their just dues — accepted in principle by the national institutions but still not given. At least let them die with dignity and not as beggars! (The writer is a
retired Lieut-Colonel.) |
The
holiday habit MY mind and mattress are good friends. There is a close kinship between the two. I love to doze during the day. Sleep at night. And get up with a yawn on a new day. This has been my practice during the long years of an uneventful existence. And it is really as He had ordained. All work and no play would make life a dull day. God made holidays to give human beings some rest. So, men who toil must get a chance to sit and relax. In India, we follow this divine dictate in more than a full measure. I remember my school, college and university days. We had lots of holidays. All the Sundays. Before the examinations, for preparation. After the exams, to wait for the result. Then came the summer vacation, the autumn break and the Christmas holidays. Besides these, the birthdays, the martyrdom days and the innumerable festivals. In all, more holidays than the days for work. And this holiday habit of childhood has persisted. To this day. Even this year, I had four weeks of vacation. One of the spells. No work. Even to shave seemed to be an avoidable burden. Totally idle. I was the idol for my grand children. They would do anything to make me move. To give some evidence of life in me. I was not persuaded. They, in course of time, got used to the stubble and the tickle it gave them. The saving on blades was the bonus. But, what did I do? Sat and stared. At the idiot box. Watched the World Cup. Then the Wimbledon.Without stirring out of the house, I got a chance to have a look at a variety of places and people. Even met some. It was an interesting experience. Basically, I have no colour prejudices. However, after watching the cricket matches, I am certainly convinced that the whites are not superior to the coloured. At least, these cannot stay as long. The whites go out of shape too soon. Particularly, the white balls. Remember? On June 12,1999, Chris Cairns of the Kiwis’ wanted the ball to be changed in the ninth over? At the end of the over, it was changed. Don’t the coloured ones stay in perfect shape much longer? These do not even seem as dirty. I have no bias against the English or anything connected with them. But, it appears that there is a divine unpredictability about the English weather. Those “playful fancies of the mighty sky”, the dark clouds, appear and disappear at will. The God’s “artillery of thunder and lightening” keeps everyone in “reverential awe.” It is always uncertain. This time, during the World Cup, it inflicted the worst punishment on the gracious hosts. It proved to be the undoing of the English themselves. I shall not be surprised if they were to blame the English weather for the ignominy of losing to a country like India. It was also evident that toughness, mental and physical, is essential for success. The World Cup and the Wimbledon proved it. The Australians beat the Springboks and the Pakistanis. Martina Hingis, the reigning world champion, met her Waterloo in the first round. She had lost to Jelena Dokic in the opening match. Boris Becker was back on the court. In the company of Lady Barbara. And with a bang. He won the five set thriller after having lost the first two. The second match was won in straight sets. And so on. Are all the games not played and won in the minds of men? I also met a few persons. One of them was Prof. R.W. He was gracious and kind. Gave me two books to read. Both very interesting. One, duly autographed. “19 Dec ‘99.” I told him an old story about an absent-minded professor. The professor had gone to the washroom, taken out his necktie and wet his trousers. However, this one has an eagle’s eye for beauty in nature. He is a keen photographer and an avid writer. It felt as if I had met more than an individual in this Professor of Architecture. So busy. Yet, he finds time for everything. A friend was kind. She lent me a good book — “Indian Birds” by Gen. R.K.G. of the Indian Army. With beautiful pictures. Very informative too. And the author is a teetotaller. A vegetarian. A nature lover. A good writer. A good shot. But, a conservationist. Shoots birds. But, only with his camera. Despite being an army man. The book bears testimony to the General’s genius and the”army’s credo” in the field of conservation. Have the games and the
people any lesson to give? Especially to a lazy person
like me? Yes! I think, the busy find time for everything.
Despite a multitude of preoccupations. For them, work is
a habit. The habit itself provides the holiday.
Otherwise, the whole world would have been as poor as we
are. |
Pakistan’s Aakhri Badla a disaster
IT’S now just over a month since our undeclared war began in Kargil and, for the first time since then, there are now clear signs that Pakistan faces defeat both militarily and diplomatically. In Delhi you perceive this from the quiet jubilation that has crept into the voices of senior ministers and officials. For obvious reasons nobody is prepared to go on record to say anything but, if you guarantee anonymity, people at the highest levels are prepared to analyse for you the reasons why they believe that Pakistan has lost both the battle and the war. On the military front, last week, India inched its way towards retaking the peak they call Tiger Hill. There was a bloody battle fought in that area on Tuesday (June 29) in which the 2nd Rajputana Rifles excelled themselves by taking a peak at 5,750 metres which had been in Pakistani occupation for some time. The cost was heavy and four officers, one junior commissioned officer and eight jawans lost their lives. But, according to my information, Pakistan lost more than 40 men. As the veils slowly begin to lift more and more information begins to emerge about what Pakistan was trying to achieve through its incursion across the Line of Control. The quagmire it now finds itself in was apparently part of a plan that was codenamed Operation Aakhri Badla (Operation Final Revenge) and the military objectives were to block the Srinagar-Leh highway with the idea of eventually pushing Indian troops out of Siachen. The wider objective was to occupy positions that would help ingress into the Kashmir Valley and that could then be used as negotiating points whenever talks finally begin. This military objective was thwarted, according to my sources in Delhi, because Pakistan had not expected India to respond as aggressively as it did. When viewed from Islamabad Delhi must have looked in bad shape. What with our constantly squabbling politicians, a weak government which even had the grace to fall and with the fact that elections are always moments when political leaders lose interest in national security in favour of more personal objectives. When you start asking questions in Delhi’s corridors of power all kinds of information emerges that often contradicts accepted wisdom in the media. so, although we in the Press have put it about that a major intelligence failure led to the intruders managing to get into our territory in the first place my investigations reveal that the failure was more to do with military complacency than failed intelligence. My sources were emphatic about this but added that even if there was some initial military complacency the situation was quickly rectified. The first intruders are now believed to have crossed the Line of Control in April and by the first week of May there was already a response from our side. By the last week of that month the Air Force started bombing the peaks. Again, contrary to Pakistan’s claims that the men who crossed into Indian territory were only Mujahideen there is now increasing evidence that our soldiers were fighting regular Pakistani troops. An estimated four battalions drawn from the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh Northern Light Infantry regiments. So, where did the Islamic warriors come in? Apparently, only as armed porters. At the highest levels in Delhi now there is optimism that Pakistan will realise sooner rather than later that Operation Aakhri Badla has been a disaster and that it’s time to cut their losses and withdraw to lick their wounds. What causes the mood to be even more optimistic in Delhi is the fact that our military successes have been backed up by some pretty impressive diplomatic victories. When the trouble began there was initially some concern that Pakistan’s old best friends — China and the USA — would give it the international credibility that it so desperately needed to justify its violation of the Line of Control. But, some aggressive diplomacy on the part of the Indian government resulted in the USA openly asking Pakistan to desist from its activities and in China deciding to remain neutral despite Pakistan’s best efforts to get it to come out on its side. The fact that Nawaz Sharif decided to cut his trip to Beijing short by more than five days, last week, came as the icing on the cake. In the words of a senior minister who requested anonymity, “Never before, in the 50 years that the Kashmir problem has been with us, has Pakistan been so isolated internationally as it is today”. So, where do we go from here? Will Kashmir become a subject for discussion when the UN General Assembly meets in September? Will the fighting in Kargil end sooner rather than later? The answers can only be vague but people I talked to expressed the hope that we could see an end to the fighting as soon as next month. As for the United Nations, Delhi appears to be quite confident that even if Kashmir does get raised the main issue will be the intrusion across the Line of Control. The gloom then, that has hung like a pall over Delhi for several weeks now, is slowly beginning to lift. Ironically, considering that Mr Vajpayee’s government now only has caretaker status, it is beginning to look better than it ever did in its 13-month tenure. It has handled the worst crisis we have faced in many years with a confidence and skill that has been quite unexpected when you consider that it nearly fell because the price of onions went up. It looks even better
when you contrast the behaviour of its ministers with the
rantings and hysteria of senior Congress leaders. They
continue to demand a special session of the Rajya Sabha
without fully explaining what will be achieved by it. If
we go by the standards of parliamentary debate that we
have seen in recent times all that we are likely to get
out of a special session is recriminations, cacophony and
the usual pattern of walkouts. If opposition leaders
believe that the government has failed in handling the
crisis in Kargil they need to make some specific charges.
These can be made without wasting time and money on a
special session of Parliament. |
Channels galore in City of Joy
IT is only when one gets out of Delhi that one realises how badly we are short-changed by our cable operators. In Bombay one can get Arabic and French Channels and several others. In Calcutta I am picking up about 40, including Bangladesh, China (some heavenly Western choral music), Australia, Indonesia, Russia and several other unknown scripts and languages. Australia offers a good choice of serials, sports programmes and covered in details the exciting political events in Timer, which is more than our news channels including Star and Zee. It takes me back to Imphal, where I was just over a year ago. When I asked my small hotel on which channel I could get Doordarshan, they asked me “Doordarshan, what is that ?” “Ask your cable operator,” I suggested. “The cable operator says he does not give it because nobody wants it.” Which is why I found the whole of Assam and Manipur watching the football World Cup on Indonesian TV and also films in English complete with English dialogue, because they were sub-titled in the Indonesian language which suited everyone. And so to programmes in Bengali, I find a sad deterioration in Bengali serials both from Bangladesh and to a lesser extent, Calcutta. The acting, make-up and sets are horribly stagy, the plots clinched and antiquated and as compared to Bombay’s technical slickness, the camerawork including lighting and composition, very disappointing. As far as the news goes, Calcutta’s ‘Khas Khabar’ is better presented and read than DD’s home product which has the long-standing lacuna of no auto cues, so that the newscaster looks at the pages and not the viewer. And, as always, so many items are crowded in and in long sentences that the poor newscaster has to read at a dizzy speed. One last word I think radio is still superior to TV in Calcutta and I was very impressed by Gavin who interviewed me for the FM channel with great style. Revealing to wider fields, cricket fever has been succeeded by tennis fever, but with lower temperatures. It is a pleasure to have it carried by Star Sports at least, half-way through and have our very own Vijay Amritraj as commentator, although his co-commentator, Audrea is still suffering from verbal diarrhoea and shatters one’s concentration with never ending and usually irrelevant comments. The coverage of the
Kargil war, we must call in that, so grim has it become,
is both competent and at times moving with its human
details. And Dr Malik, the wife of the Army Chief, spoke
with both professionalism and competence about casualties
and then aftermath. We need more human interest
interviews of this type after we have done with the
military expertise and the defence analysts. |
Self-Government Resolution SIR Tej Bahadur Sapru moved the
resolution on self-government in a long speech in which
he analysed the whole self-government position clearly.
The resolution was to the effect that the conference was
convinced that the time had arrived for the revision of
the Government of India Act or for the passing by
Parliament of some other legislation to establish
complete, responsible governments for the provinces and
urging the early appointment of a commission to consider
the entire question of the constitution and the treatment
of Indians overseas. Opposing the proposed resumption of
emigration of British Guiana, urging the modification of
the military policy to ensure that a national Indian army
may come into existence at as early a date as may be
feasible and that the recruitment of all public services
should in future ordinarily take place only in India and
no action be taken on the Lee Commission’s Report
without consulting public opinion. |
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