P A G E
Wednesday, November 10, 1999
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E D I T O R I A L P A G E |
Wednesday, November 10, 1999 |
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Abdus
Sattar in old form
ELECTION
COMMISSION’S POWERS |
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Black
Americans to vie for seat in Senate
The
shock
November
10, 1924 |
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Abdus Sattar in old form PAKISTAN'S new Foreign Minister has opened his India file with his characteristically negative posture. New Delhi knows him too well to misunderstand him. When he accuses India's foreign policy planners of "not reacting positively to offers aimed at improving bilateral relations" after needlessly asserting the "considered" view that Pakistan has "no plan to abandon its nuclear option", he reminds one of his hawkish temperament. He is brusquely dismissive of what is generally known as the Lahore Declaration. The series of ideas given this respectable title is neither conclusive nor binding like the Simla Agreement. Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee repeated what one of his predecessors, Mr I.K. Gujral, had done. He wanted to spread goodwill and strengthen bilateral relations. Bus diplomacy was a fancy tag given to an act of good neighbourliness. Thanks to Mr Nawaz Sharif's and General Musharraf's combined unwisdom, particularly in the context of the Kargil misadventure, the expression has begun to sound ludicrous, if not derogatory. Mr Nawaz Sharif will meet his nemesis in accordance with the consequences of his (mis) deeds. But his successor will have to account for the violation of his official commitments — verbal or written. Chief Executive Musharraf is a military ruler whom many would like to address or qualify as they did Field Marshal Ayub Khan, General Yahya Khan and General Zia-ul-Haq. The nature of the
Pakistani Cabinet and the National Security Council is
anti-democratic and, therefore, autocratic. Mr
Sharifuddin Pirzada and Mrs Atiya Inayatullah are
miniature Zia-spherical plotters, savouring power and
pelf after years of oblivion. Mr Abdus Sattar's finely
honed, ambivalent skill earned him a circle of polite
friends when he, a former Foreign Secretary, was asked to
move to New Delhi by Ms Benazir Bhutto from the
Ambassador's House in Moscow. Indo-Pakistan ties needed
his special style and skill to keep them sufficiently
tense. He was known as the architect of "the contain
India" policy in diplomatic circles. He managed to
move on from Zia-ism to Benazir cult. This fact shows his
mastery of the art and craft of diplomatic survival. Mr
Abdus Sattar is a hardliner and in his lexicon tension
comes before intention. His summing up of the current
thinking in India is this: "Instead of resolving
differences on the basis of law and justice, India seeks
to exploit power disparity to impose unilateral
preferences." Is he annoyed with India's sympathy
for democratic institutions in its neighbourhood? Or is
he feeling isolated within SAARC? He dictates the foreign
policy script to the military ruler, who is rather
innocent of political intricacies in a complex world
metamorphosed by American inconsistencies and Arab
ambivalence. Much of Europe has put itself in the
onlooker's position. General Musharraf should put some
curbs on Mr Abdus Sattar's liberty of a diplomatic
libertine. Does the Chief Executive realise that his
Foreign Minister is almost closing the channels of
negotiations with India and other democratic countries? |
Human cargo IT is the rough equivalent of the massacre of the innocent. Every year, hundreds of Punjabi youth sell off their scarce land and other belongings in the fond hope that they will be transported to the promised foreign land of milk and honey where they will be given lucrative jobs. Instead, they land themselves in jails in far-off places like Moscow, Kiev and Malaysia. In place of the gullible youth making money, it is the qualmless travel agents who manage to reach the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow with chilling regularity. Despite the fact that there have been hundreds of such cases, this export of human cargo continues. The victims have to live without food for days together, drink their own urine and are made to travel "like sacks of potatoes"; all in the name of getting jobs abroad. Yet, there are any number of people who undertake such a journey to hell. In fact, they pay lakhs of rupees to the travel agents, without learning from the mistakes of their acquaintances. The Tribune has been repeatedly highlighting the plight of the victims, most of whom happen to be from Khanna, Kurukshetra, Fatehgarh Sahib, Moga and Mohali. Their condition in jails of foreign countries can well be imagined. It would be simplistic to blame all this on greed alone. It is just that employment opportunities back home are so meagre that they fall easy prey to the touts of the travel agents, ignoring all wise counsel. What needs to be kept in
mind is that even those who do manage to go abroad bring
such bad publicity to the country. They are mostly
without valid papers and are exploited to the hilt in
sweatshops. To make their stay valid, they either falsely
claim to be victims of political vendetta or marry
foreign spouses just to get the necessary documents. Many
others simply take to crime. Either way, it the good name
of the country that suffers. The way the organised racket
has been flourishing, it would not be wrong to suspect
that some embassy and immigration officials might indeed
be part of the mafia as alleged by some victims. What is
most unfortunate is that the government has not done much
in this regard. Since it is the reputation of the country
which is at stake, effective intervention is mandatory.
The travel agents have been functioning in such a brazen
manner that their game can be exposed by just posting
some intelligence officials as decoy customers. At the
same time, there is need for doing something about the
difficulties faced by the unemployed youth. It is high
time the lessons learnt from the Malta boat tragedy are
put to good use and the never-ending exploitation of the
gullible is curbed ruthlessly. |
Insuring education THE reported initiative of the Central Board of Secondary Education in the matter of floating the concept of what can be called "the millennium group insurance for school children" deserves unqualified support. CBSE Chairman B. P. Khandelwal believes that the introduction of such a scheme for spreading the base of school education in the country "is the need of the hour". Under the proposed scheme every school student would be required to pay a nominal amount of money as monthly premium for availing the benefits of group insurance. To avoid disputes and abuse of the scheme the draft plan prepared by the CBSE has clarified that "it would be valid only within the school premises or related to school activities. For instance, a trip undertaken by the school or an accident involving the school bus". The scheme would cover minor injuries sustained by students in the playfield to accidental fatalities. It is but natural for the board to seek the help of the general insurance sector for the implementation of the scheme. The modalities of payment, including the possibility of the school administration or the government itself picking up the tab in the case of students from families below the poverty line, need to be fine-tuned. Nevertheless, students, parents, teachers and educational experts should have no reservation in accepting that the proposed group insurance scheme for school children is a revolutionary concept. If implemented honestly,
the scheme has the potential to help the country achieve
the goal of not only total literacy but also universal
education within a short span of time. The shortcomings,
if any, in the current proposal can be removed by
involving the insurance sector, students and their
parents, the school administrations and educational
experts in a constructive dialogue. An attractive feature
of the scheme is the proposal to provide educational
loans for further studies to students from poor families.
There should also be a provision for ensuring the
continuation of education of students who become orphans
while still in school and there is no one else in the
family for providing them "educational
security". The CBSE chief, Prof Khandelwal, has no
doubt that the group insurance scheme for school children
would help usher in the long overdue "educational
revolution". It has already been tried out with a
fair measure of success in some CBSE-affiliated schools
in Delhi. In fact, a similar scheme, with the necessary
modifications, should be introduced for college and
university students and those enrolled in institutions
offering professional courses of study. A properly worked
out scheme should be able to take care of the problem of
students having to drop out both at the school and
college levels because of adverse family circumstances. |
ELECTION COMMISSION’S POWERS A NATIONAL daily has given the alarming news that a move is afoot to fill the vacancy in the Election Commission caused by the retirement of Mr G.V.G. Krishnamurthy with a person amenable to the interests of the National Democratic Alliance government, and possibly expand and so pack it as to neutralise the powers of the Chief Election Commissioner, Mr M.S. Gill, and Mr J.M. Lyngdoh. According to the newspaper report, a number of official voices are apprehensive that a section of the Janata Dal (United) would prevail over Mr Vajpayee to take a partisan view in finding a replacement for Mr Krishnamurthy. Worse, the government is stated to be thinking of expanding the Election Commission and packing it. The elastic Article 324 of the Constitution, it is feared, would come to the government’s aid. Article 324 (2) reads: “The Election Commission shall consist of the Chief Election Commissioner and such number of other Election Commissioners, if any, as the President may from time to time fix and the appointment of the Chief Election Commissioner and other Election Commissioners shall, subject to the any law made by Parliament in that behalf, be made by the President.” Thus, it is clear that, unless there exists a law made by Parliament which restricts the number of Election Commissioners, the President (the government that is) is free to have as many Election Commissioners as it chooses, or none. What is constitutionally mandatory is that there has to be a Chief Election Commissioner. It may be recalled that until September, 1989, the Election Commissioners was a one-man show — it consisted of the Chief Election Commission alone. In October, 1989, the President, through a notification appointed two Election Commissioners with coordinating powers. This was done by the Rajiv Gandhi regime. However, the V.P. Singh ministry got the notification revoked by the President in January, 1990, with the result that the two Election Commissioners lost their jobs. One of them moved the Supreme Court but got no relief. The Chief Election Commissioner, Mr T.N. Seshan, proved to be too self-willed and thus a thorn in the flesh of the government. In order to neutralise him, the Narasimha Rao government got appointed Mr M.S. Gill and Mr G.V.G. Krishnamurthy as Election Commissioners. Mr Seshan challenged the Ordinance but a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court not only held it valid but, overruling the decision of the Division Bench that had heard the Dhanoa case, also denied the primus interes pares status to the Chief Election Commissioner and held that, as far as practicable, the decisions had to be unanimous; if that was not possible, the majority decision had to prevail. Hence the present position is this. There is no law passed by Parliament that pegs the membership of the commission to a certain limit. Perhaps it was for this reason that the Election Commission suggested last year to the political parties that Parliament should restrict the membership to three: the Chief Election Commissioner plus two Election Commissioners. As far as the practice goes, there have been outstanding Chief Election Commissioners, the tallest among them being Mr Su. Kumar Sen. There have been weak ones too, who had better remain unnamed. What is relevant for our purpose is that over the years, shortcomings notwithstanding, the Election Commission has evolved into an independent and vibrant body. Despite his idiosyncrasies, Mr Seshan did make it a strong body, and the present Election Commission has, by and large, functioned impartially. If there can be any complaint it is about its attempt to interfere with the independence of the Press and thereby with the right to freedom of speech and expression, as for instance through its ban on the publication of exit poll results until the official results were out. Even at the cost of a bit of digression, I may point out that after being rebuffed by the Supreme Court and having had to withdraw its order, the Chief Election Commissioner made the point in course of an interview that the Press had mistaken the Election Commissioner’s advice to be an order. Facts are otherwise. In its guidelines issued in 1998 on public opinion and exit polls, the commission unequivocally said: “Viewed in the light of the above statutory restrictions, allowing results of opinion polls and exit polls to be published, on the eve of polls or during the polling process, would be deleterious intrusion into the mind of the voters ... the Commission is statutorily bound to take all such steps as will give effect to the parliamentary intent and implement the law, in letter and spirit, as laid down by guidelines.” Thus in issuing the guidelines the commission was not proffering advice to the Press but was implementing what it thought was the law, or at least its true spirit. However, the Press does not, or ought not, bear a grudge against the commission for interfering with the right of the Press, especially after the wrong has been righted. The Press, acting on behalf of the people, has a vested interest in a live and independent Election Commission; in fact in the independent and vibrant functioning of all the institutions created by the Constitution. The members of the
National Democratic Alliance may have a grudge against
the commission for delaying the election process, even
though ultimately the alliance came into power. The
commission may have overreached its powers in telling
what the government must do or what issues it must not
raise — Kargil, for instance. But any design, if
true, so to subvert the Election Commission as to make it
serve the NDA’s partisan purposes must be opposed
not only by the Press but also by the people. To use a
hackneyed expression, the move must be nipped in the bud. |
Secret dialogue : looking for
truth PAKISTAN’s Chief Executive Pervez Musharraf is quite right when he says that Nawaz Sharif must be repenting for making him the Army Chief. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto also regretted appointing Gen Zia-ul-Haq as the Army Chief. This only shows how scared the two Prime Ministers were of the military establishment that they looked for such officers to head the army as would not retard the political process. That both of them had to pay the price for reposing trust in wrong persons does not mean that the effort to cut the army to size was wrong. It only means that the military establishment in Pakistan is so strong that it tolerates civilian rule up to a point, not beyond. Both Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif committed the mistake of “going beyond”. This does not, in any way, give legal sanction to the military regime. Even a referendum, which General Musharraf has hinted at to determine the people’s backing, is not a real test. Fear will play on the minds of people. Pakistan has gone through it. Gen Ayub Khan was elected President against Fatima Jinnah, sister of Quaid-e-Azam, the founder of Pakistan. She was a venerable lady, deeply respected throughout the country. Still, she could not win. The failure of Mr Sharif or earlier civilian rulers does not suggest that the Pakistanis love military rule. General Musharraf should not be under any such illusion. They applaud him because he has promised to clean up the country and carry out reforms like decentralisation. His promise of accountability will, however, carry more weight if he initiates action, not only against corrupt civilians but also corrupt military men. It is more than a coincidence that no army, air force or naval official has been arraigned for corruption since the foundation of Pakistan. General Musharraf’s observations on relations with India at his first Press conference reflect an unfortunate bent of mind. That he is anti-India or a hawk is known. That he is responsible for the Kargil intrusion is also a well-established fact. But that he would be so indiscreet in his remarks after becoming the Chief Executive was not expected. He should have noted that New Delhi has not reacted to the military takeover beyond saying that it was “concerned” over such a situation in a neighbouring country. Not a word has been said about democracy being throttled once again in Pakistan. This is in sharp contrast to India’s comment after the first military coup which took place in Pakistan on October 8, 1958. I was then in the Press gallery of the Lok Sabha. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was in his seat when a note was handed over to him informing that Ayub Khan had taken over the administration in Pakistan. He got up from his seat in the midst of the proceedings to announce that it was naked military dictatorship in Pakistan. He was a democrat. It was hard for him to reconcile himself to a person who had not come to power through the ballot box. The BJP-led government has been overcautious. It had all the justification to throw caution to the winds because it was General Musharraf who hatched and executed the plan to attack India in Kargil. Still the most reprehensible thing he did was to end the process of conciliation which was set in motion after the Lahore Declaration. It is no more a secret. Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has confirmed in an interview that there were backdoor negotiations between India and Pakistan on Kashmir and that they had official blessings. The observer group’s R.K. Mishra and former Pakistan Foreign Secretary Niaz A. Naik were the messengers, who carried the brief to New Delhi and Islamabad, and tried to broker an agreement. Mr Vajpayee has also said for the first time that the two countries were “nearing a solution.” Understandably, he has not spelled out the terms which he was discussing with Mr Sharif. If they were “nearing a solution” it was a breakthrough in a 52-year-old impasse. This is what the people in the two countries and beyond have been longing for. Who sabotaged the process? Mr Naik’s remarks, which a leading Pakistani daily in Urdu, Jang, published after the Kargil operation, give a clue. He said: “The programme and the informal diplomacy which could have led to the resolution of the Kashmir dispute by September-October this year was derailed by Kargil.” He goes on to add: “There was no coordination between the armed forces and the civilian leadership.” What this means is that the two countries would have crossed the biggest hurdle in the way of normalising their relations if the Kargil intrusion or the military establishment had not prevented it. Mr Naik’s interview to the BBC at the end of June, when the unilateral withdrawal from the Kargil heights was in progress confirms it. He said that “Vajpayee’s message to me was that if the situation is resolved as quickly as possible, then the process which he had started along with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif can easily be resumed and accelerated.” This indicates that either Mr Sharif did not know about Kargil at all or had very scanty information about it. The initial statement of Defence Minister George Fernandes was right that Mr Sharif was not aware of the Kargil operation. Probably, Mr Sharif communicated his lack of knowledge to New Delhi. That may be the reason why Mr Fernandes made the second statement that if the Pakistani forces were to withdraw, there would be no firing at the retreating troops. It was not difficult to add two and two. What Mr Sharif did was not to the liking of the army, neither the “nearing” to a solution on nor the withdrawal of troops and the Mujahideen from Kargil. He had to pay the price. A knowledgeable top military officer in India has put it succinctly: “No Prime Minister in Pakistan will now ever dare to settle Kashmir, knowing the fate of Nawaz Sharif.” It was nothing unusual if Mr Sharif had not been told about the Kargil intrusion. General Ayub was in the dark on the infiltration in Kashmir in 1964, called Operation Gibraltar. His Information Secretary , Mr Altaf Gauhar, in an article in The Nation, said “ While Ayub Khan was determined not to embark on any military operation in Kashmir, Aziz Ahmed and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto were preparing a plan to launch a commando operation in Kashmir with the help of the Inter-Services Intelligence. Ayub, who was in Swat, knew little about these developments. The GHQ was sending him reports to suggest that Operation Gibraltar was making progress.” New Delhi should now take the nation into confidence and tell what happened. Mr Mishra undertook five trips to Pakistan and Mr Naik visited India six times. Still nothing is known officially. The matter was raised in the Rajya Sabha. But Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh, who wound up the discussion on the President’s Address, did not throw any light in his reply. In reality, this reflects the government’s disregard for Parliament because it does not consider it necessary to take the House into confidence. The entire sequence of
events has become important because Kargil might have led
to the military coup in Pakistan. Mr Sharif has been a
casualty. In fact, there should be a White Paper on
“The Lahore Process and After”. While in Delhi
before the coup but after the end of his mission, Mr Naik
told a former Indian Foreign Secretary that there was an
understanding between the two Prime Ministers at Lahore
that non-official emissaries would pick up the thread on
Kashmir. And they did. Then what transpired between the
two governments? That they were “nearing a
solution” is heartening to know, although it is all
history. Still the country must know. |
The
shock THE year 1989. The venue: Heart Care and Research Centre. The patient: my mother. For bypass surgery. The place: every inch like a five-star hotel. Spick and span. Excellent patient care. A trained nurse for everyone. Round the clock. Good facilities. Even for the attendants. A spacious lounge. Air-conditioned. Comfortable seats. Open from morning to evening. No one was allowed at night. If required the family was informed. All in all, a good place for the patient. Probably, one of the best. The centre was taking care of my mother. Except for a minor change, the doctors had continued with the medicines she was already taking the same regimen of Beta blockers and anti-coagulants, etc. They had started giving nitroglycerine intravenously instead of the medicine that she was taking orally. Her condition was being continuously monitored. However, there was no apparent change. Is she fit for surgery? Would they operate upon her? At the end of the week, I asked myself: is she better? I thought — “No”! So, what was the hospital doing? I was concerned. In fact, anxious. The Director was the Chief Surgeon too. He used to reach the hospital at 10 every morning. I accosted him as he got out of his Mercedes. Requested him for an appointment. “Ten tonight in my office” was the crisp reply. I reached five minutes before time. Punctual to a dot, the doctor came out of the operation theatre. Despite 12 hours of stressful work involving six surgeries, he seemed totally relaxed. Even smiling. He must be enjoying his work. It was reassuring. On the way, the doctor stopped to talk to a patient who was walking in the corridor. Answered all the queries with the patience of a judge. And suddenly the patient was smiling. He had just seen somebody enter the doctor’s office. He was very happy. He requested the doctor to go in and talk to the man inside. He was his son. He was sure that his son was anxious. He had come to take him back home. The doctor greeted the young man. Almost warmly. “Doc! How is the old man? Would he drag through this night too?” was the cold query. He did not know that his father was listening to every word. “Critical. Anything can happen. Anytime”, was the doctor’s response. He was not oblivious of the patient’s presence. He was watching the young man. “Very well! Can’t be helped. He has to go. What can anybody do? I have spent almost all that he had given me. I may not be able to support him for long. But will you do me a favour? Please give instructions to the staff that if anything happens to the old man at night, nobody should disturb me before 9 in the morning.” And, then, the young man seemed to notice that others were listening. Presumably to explain, he added, “You see, I have had a long day at my desk. I shall now go back home. Have a shower. I have asked a friend over. We shall have a drink. A bite. And then.... I need to take care of myself also. I must get some sleep too. So, you see. Nobody should disturb me before 9 a.m. Even otherwise, what can I do? Everyone has to go. Someday.” “Yes! You are right. Nobody shall disturb you,” said the doctor. He was right. He could have done nothing for his father. For the man who had given him birth. Loved him. More than anybody else. Watched him grow. Moment to moment. Trained him. With parental care. Today, he was ill. He had been fighting for life. With the doctor’s help and His grace, he had recovered. Slowly. And the man, a part of his own flesh and blood, had no time for him. He was more concerned about his own comfort. Not about his dying father. Could he have given any comfort to his father? Even by his presence. The old man had heard every word. He could no longer hide himself. The young man saw him. His father had fully recovered? Who was shocked? Both?
Or only me? |
Black Americans to vie for
seat in Senate THE absence of any African-Americans in the all-White, 100-member US Senate is generating pressure for one of the country’s most prominent Black leaders to mount a challenge to the Republican party’s Senate leader in next year’s elections. Mr Mike Espy, a former Clinton administration agriculture secretary and a former Democratic Congressman from Mississippi, is being urged to run against the Republican senator Trent Lott when he defends his Mississippi senate seat next November. Statistically, African-Americans have greatly increased their presence at almost all levels of elective office in the past quarter of a century. In 1970 Black Americans held 1,469 posts. Today they hold more than 8,000, including 39 seats in the House of Representatives and 579 seats in state legislatures. But while it is one thing to be elected to office in a largely Black district or city, it remains quite another for a Black American to win an election where the majority of voters are White, as is the case in all statewide contests for the Senate or governorships, let alone national contests such as the presidency. Systemic difficulties continue to face those who seek election to what is an almost permanently all-White institution. Only two Black politicians have ever won seats in the Senate. Ed Brooke, a Republican from Massachusetts, served from 1966 to 1978, and Carol Moseley-Braun, a Democrat, lost her Illinois seat in November last year. Only a handful of other Black candidates have ever mounted a serious challenge to extend their number in a chamber, which comprises two members from each state, each elected on a statewide ballot for a six-year term. ‘‘Race plays heavily when you’re trying to raise money because the people you approach have to first get over that you’re an African-American to believe that you’re viable,’’ says Mr Ron Sims, who ran as the Democratic candidate for a Washington state senate seat in 1994. ‘‘They want to see poll, and they want to know if you’ve tested for the racial factor. I don’t think any White candidate has ever had to do that.’’ The absence of Black Senators has again been highlighted by the bitter response from senior White politicians on the Senate foreign relations committee to President Bill Clinton’s nomination of Ms Moseley-Braun as the next US ambassador to New Zealand. The Republican committee chairman, Senator Jesse Helms, vowed three weeks ago to block the nomination. Mr Helms said he was angry about a 1993 incident in which the then Senator Moseley-Braun prevented the Senate from renewing a design patent for the United Daughters of the Confederacy, on the basis that its Stars and Bars flag of the pro-slavery South was a racist symbol. But Mr Helms, who had sponsored the renewal of that patent, conspicuously absented himself from Ms Moseley-Braun’s confirmation hearing in his committee last Friday. Her nomination is now expected to win approval from Senators later this week. The pressure for Mr Espy, a widely admired Black politician in a state with a large Black electorate, to stand has been led by the Rev Jesse Jackson. Last week Mr Jackson called Mr Espy on to the platform at an election rally in Greenwood, Mississippi, and urged him to run. Supporters chanted ‘‘Senator Espy, Senator Espy’’ in approval. Mississippi has the highest percentage of Black voters — 36 per cent - of any of the 50 states. But it, too, has never sent a Black Senator to Washington. The move comes as Mississippi Democrats are buoyant at their party’s success in wresting back the state governorship from the Republicans in an off-year election earlier this month, in which Black voters provided a key block of support for Democrat Ronnie Musgrove in a tight race. Mr Espy would face a huge task if he decided to challenge Mr Lott, a two-term Senator who won a two-to-one victory in his previous Senate contest in 1994 and who has assiduously used his position as Senate majority leader to channel government projects — and, therefore, jobs — to his home state. ‘‘It’s something to think about,’’ Mr Espy said of the prospect of his standing, in an interview with the Roll Call newspaper on Monday. ‘‘But it’s very unlikely.’’ Mr Marvin McMickle, an African-American Democrat who is contemplating a Senate run in Ohio in 2000, says: ‘‘America is used to Black people saying, ‘I want to be mayor’, but I don’t think America has heard enough people say ‘I want to be Senator’ for it to be easily received. ‘‘When I say
it, people think I’m talking about the state
Senate.’’ — The Guardian, London. |
Out go fatty foods as UK
diet improves BRITAIN is junking its old love of lard and indulging in healthy fruit juices, according to a UK government survey of what the nation eats and drinks. For the 10th successive year, shoppers have shown a growing interest in what their diet does to them, as well as its taste, availability and cost. Wine continues to wallop English beer — a trend considered irreversible by food scientists — and, in bakery terms, Britons no longer live by bread alone. The annual shopping basket research by the UK’s Ministry of agriculture, fisheries and food shows that even brown wholemeal loaves have fallen out of favour, and there has been a 5 per cent slide in the consumption of cereals, cakes and biscuits. In their place, oily fish has increased for the fourth year running, while fruit juice consumption is up by 10 per cent on 1997, taking the rise in orange, grapefruit and cranberry to an overall 44 per cent in a decade. Beef’s problems have seen mutton and lamb consumption go up by 5 per cent during this period, with a pronounced increase in on-the-bone joints since the ban on beef on the bone was introduced in December, 1997. ‘‘We’ve got the usual regional peculiarities, like Welsh people eating vast amounts of potato or whatever, but they don’t affect a very encouraging and consistent national picture,’’ said Jackie Dowthwaite of the UK Food and Drink Federation. ‘‘More and more, people are looking at food in the shops and wanting to know: what will it do to me or what will it fend off?’’ The survey also shows a marked increase in eating out and a more adventurous approach to daily diets, with families more disposed to take children to restaurants or to join in the traditional teenage preference for convenience or takeaway foods as a regular fixture rather than a limited treat. The eating out share of the average food budget rose by almost 2 per cent last year. This was mirrored by a decline in most of the eating-in staples, including a 2 per cent fall in milk consumption (including an unusual dip in skimmed milk), 5 per cent in cheese, 2 per cent in eggs and 7 per cent in sugar, which is now used less by the average household than at any time in history. Vegetable consumption was also down, but chips and crisps, the twin pillars of teenage diet, were 2 per cent up. ‘‘There is a decidedly individualistic attitude to eating and drinking these days,’’ said Ms Dowthwaite. ‘‘A family might eat in one night, go and get burgers the next and then try a variety of convenience foods the night after that, often a mixture, some spicy, some fish and chips, and so on. But one thing common to the mixture is an obviously increasing awareness of what makes a healthy diet.’’ The British Nutrition Foundation welcomed the survey’s findings, but called for more education on adding ``harder to prepare’’ items to the nation’s daily intake. Sara Stanner of the foundation said: ``The figures show a tremendous rise in healthy food and drink which is easy to add to your diet; fruit juices are the obvious example. But a lot more work needs to be done on vegetables, which take care and preparation to add to meals — not always easy in a busy world.’’ The foundation is concerned that the slight drop in calorie intake is having no effect on Britain’s increasing obesity, although the solution defies the old adage that ‘‘we are what we eat’’. In size terms, said Ms
Stanner, the British are what they failed to shed through
exercise. ``We are cutting down on fatty foods slowly,
but we are becoming sedentary creatures rapidly. What we
need is a survey like this, to show us how little we
exercise.’’ — The Guardian,
London. |
November
10, 1924 THE C and M. Gazette has every right to rejoice at the result of the British elections, for it certainly means that so far as the India Office and the Cabinet are concerned, India will have nothing to hope for some time. But when the journal goes on to say that “the present election has but confirmed the previously expressed verdict of Parliament that the time is not yet ripe for further constitutional experiments in India”, it clearly makes its wish the father to its thought. Parliament has not yet had any opportunity of expressing the deliberate opinion which the journal attributes to it, and as for the elections they have been fought simply without reference to India. No party, with the
exception of the small party of Communists, ever referred
to India in its election manifesto, and only one party
leader made a passing reference to India in one of his
electioneering speeches. So far as the ordinary elector
was concerned, India might as well not have existed. |
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