E D I T O R I A L   P A G E

EDITORIALS

Bihar is bizarre 
WHAT a Bihar Minister did to two dalits during the past one month may seem shocking to the civilised world but is nothing uncommon in the badland ruled by Mrs Rabri Devi. Rare is the city or village where dalits are not subjected to inhuman atrocities day after day. 

Alarming scenario
THE Central and state governments have set up cells and earmarked funds for fighting the scourge of AIDS. And yet global monitoring agencies continue to slam India for not doing enough for the prevention of a disease for which there is thus far no known cure. 

ON TARGET

Information technology & the poor-II
by Rajendra S. Pawar
AS the computer-aided transformation depends vitally on the rapidity with which a high bandwidth information highway will girdle the globe, there are fears that for the poor who do not have access to even a telephone, the World Wide Web will degenerate into a World Wide Wait. However, this need not necessarily be so.

MIDDLE

WORLD IN FOCUS

French help for sub programme
From Ranvir Nayar in Paris
FRANCE has agreed to help India revive its aborted submarine construction programme, which has been in limbo since the German firm HDW withdrew from a collaborative venture nearly a decade ago.

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

Now it is reinvestment 

POWER Minister Rangarajan Kumaramangalam is ebullient in thinking and his latest ideas are sure to set every Cabinet colleague on the edge. He wants to separate the smaller but profitable thermal power projects from the main corporation and sell them off. That is old hat and several Ministries are working on the same lines. But what is brand new is the use the sale proceeds will be put to. The money will not go to the Finance Ministry for reducing the fiscal deficit but will help build new generating units. The Minister’s logic is impeccable. The country has to add every year at least 10,000 MW in its production capacity and foreign direct investment is not all that encouraging. Each mega watt of generation costs around Rs 5 crore and that means India needs Rs 50,000 crore to meet the power needs. This makes it compulsory for the yet-to-be created holding companies (NHPC and NTPC) to retain the fund and plough it back to produce power. This way more power will come on line and that in itself will be a good thing even if it does not amount to even a fraction of what the country really needs. The Power Ministry offers an excellent reason for retaining the money for augmenting generation. The two corporations do not get any budgetary allotment and hence deserve to be treated differently from other units listed for privatisation. Another reason is the priority of power generation which should not be bracketed with running hotels and airlines. All very well, but still there is a big doubt. Since electricity is a very essential ingredient of growth, and since the units marked out for disposal are profit-making ones, why sell them at all? The buyer of the utilities will pay only the depreciated value which will not cover the cost of a new plant of the same capacity. This will mean additional investment just to maintain the old capacity. This does not make sense. There is another argument against this. During the recent past the experience with private power generation has not been happy or encouraging. It would be better to watch the progress of the ongoing projects by Mittals, Hindujas and a mixed group in southern Karnataka before coming up with a long-term plan in as important a sector as power.

As though in competition, another Cabinet Minister has come up with a proposal of dubious validity. Union Health Minister C.P. Thakur wants the government to gradually withdraw from running hospitals in big cities and district towns. He wants to tie up with private individuals or companies to take over healthcare in the hope that the service will improve. He refers to the Indraprastha Apollo hospital in Delhi as the model he has in mind. He claims it to be a joint venture of the government and the Chennai-based group and sees similar institutions in select district headquarters. His interview to an economic newspaper makes the additional point that such joint ventures will not hurt the cause of the poor. Both the possibility of better medical service and moderate charges are open to challenge. A modern hospital is a very costly proposition and the budgetary allocation for salaries, equipment and medicines runs into hundreds of crores of rupees. Even with this kind of support hospitals frequently increase various charges to meet the growing demand. Now, a joint venture is a commercial proposition, with potential for bringing in profit. To make a hospital produce profit, the fee structure should be on the model of Apollo hospital, which will price the services out of all but a small section of the population. One way out is to lease out the hospitals to private hands on the condition that poor people will get treatment at highly subsidised fees. That indeed is the Apollo model but press reports have been dismissive of the smooth functioning of this system. Finally, medical care is a key element of social welfare and it is risky to hand it over completely to profit-minded entrepreneurs. 

Bihar is bizarre 

WHAT a Bihar Minister did to two dalits during the past one month may seem shocking to the civilised world but is nothing uncommon in the badland ruled by Mrs Rabri Devi. Rare is the city or village where dalits are not subjected to inhuman atrocities day after day. Especially if someone happens to be a Minister or an MLA or even an ordinary politician, or, in short, a "neta", it becomes his birthright to pick up just about anyone who is not similarly privileged and make him a target of his barbarity. And such privileges are enjoyed with even greater gusto if the victim happens to be a dalit. That is what happened in the case of truck driver Deenanath Baitha and cleaner Karu Ram. They earned the wrath of the Minister of State for Cooperatives, Mr Lalit Kumar Yadav, who confined them in his official residence and subjected them to torture in the most barbaric manner. They were mercilessly beaten up by the Minister and his henchmen and their nails were pulled out. People belonging to the so-called upper castes have used such inhuman methods for centuries. In place of improving, the situation has worsened after Independence. Even the people belonging to the Other Backward Castes (OBCs) have joined the tyrant bandwagon. That is bewildering, considering that they themselves have been victims of the despotism of the upper castes all their lives. But society has been fragmented so badly that the caste hierarchy is a grim reality today. So, a Yadav finds nothing odd in misbehaving with people belonging to the SCs/STs while he himself revolts against exactly a similar misconduct of the upper castes. This violent hide-bound caste structure coupled with cruelty that comes with political power has played havoc in Bihar.

The bizarre happenings did not stop there. The badly mauled victims were taken to a police station in handcuffs, as the pictures of the "rescued" dalits prove beyond doubt. To cap it all, an attempt was made to implicate them in a robbery case. That is the standard procedure followed by the men in khaki when they are out to protect the fair name of a mantriji. The worthy is absconding. While action has been initiated separately against the bodyguard of the Minister for not informing the police about the incident for well over a month despite being aware of it, punishing the poor havaldar will be meaningless, considering that such low-ranking personnel are hardly in a position to raise their voice against the all-powerful Ministers. It is the Minister who deserves exemplary punishment. He has been sacked by the Chief Minister but much more remains to be done. There are dark rumours that the police is giving him a long rope. His immediate arrest is called for. Mrs Rabri Devi and Mr Laloo Prasad Yadav have moved in quickly mainly because the atrocities on dalits can have a serious political fallout. This urgency might have been missing if the victims were from some other caste. Now that one Minister stands exposed, it is time to rein in the others as well. 

Alarming scenario

THE Central and state governments have set up cells and earmarked funds for fighting the scourge of AIDS. And yet global monitoring agencies continue to slam India for not doing enough for the prevention of a disease for which there is thus far no known cure. A major reason why official and non-official organisations have failed to arrest the disease from spreading has something to do with the hypocritical attitude of most Indians to the need to encourage open and informed debate on sex-related issues. The country is overflowing with self-appointed guardians of moral values who take delight in running down the West for being the repository of permissiveness and perversion. Yet it is not a country located in the “perverted” West which reports the highest number of AIDS cases with embarrassing regularity. Only South Africa is ahead of India with a higher head count of AIDS-affected people. The latest United Nations Programme on AIDS report has again repeated the warning which has never been taken seriously by the political leadership and health care experts. The report says that India has a major disaster unfolding because of the official indifference to implementing AIDS prevention strategies. When Ms Kiran Bedi was sent to the infamous Tihar Jail in Delhi, she turned the punishment posting into an opportunity for introducing overdue prisons reforms. Her efforts earned her global praise, a breakfast invitation from the White House and the prestigious Magasaysay Award. She introduced the practice of providing condoms to male prisoners simply because she, like any informed individual, knew that homosexuality was primarily responsible for the spread of AIDS among prisoners. The politicians were embarrassed and the so-called keepers of the country’s morals were aghast. Ms Kiran Bedi was accused of legitimising homosexuality among the male prisoners. The distribution of condoms was stopped and she was once again punished by being transferred out of Tihar Jail!

But the UNPAIDS report confirms what Ms Kiran Bedi knew was a major source of the spread of AIDS in India. It has slammed Indian men for not practising safe sex. Truck drivers and factory workers account for a fairly high percentage of the nearly four million HIV positive cases reported by healthcare professionals and community workers. The disease is spreading at an alarming rate among married women, not because they are promiscuous but because of the wrong “sleeping habits” of their men. Tamil Nadu reports the highest number of AIDS cases and in most instances men bring home the affliction from the brothels they visit. Manipur too is not far behind. But the problem in the North-East has something to do with the use of injectable drugs. According to a survey, 88 per cent married women in Tamil Nadu became infected because their husbands visited prostitutes. In Manipur the habit of injecting drugs was responsible for a 70 per cent increase in AIDS cases over the past 10 years. It is evident that the current approach has failed to arrest the spread of AIDS in the country. The entire programme needs to be recast for making it effective.

A clutch of confused impulses
Economics into politics
by Darshan Singh Maini

IN finally deciding to do a piece on Dr Manmohan Singh’s neo-liberal economics and retrogressive politics, I have had to brood for long in view of the certain complexities of the case. When I wrote a “target” article on Mr George Fernandes’ slide into realpolitik while maintaining a mask of ideological authenticity, I did have some anxious moments, though no sentiment as such was involved. When an internationally known socialist thinker and activist embraces adversary politics out of some deep-seated urges and “fixation”, it represents a certain archetypal pattern in the game of power, a question that has often been the subject of intensive scrutiny in socio-psychological studies and in fiction. And broadly speaking, the “St George” case did fit into that frame. We were dismayed, but not shocked. In the case of Dr Manmohan Singh, however, despite the transparencies, I find a clutch of confused impulses and moral pressures coming into the picture, and making the issue fairly intriguing and, of course, distressing.

Clearly, my deep personal regard for his great intellectual endowments and for his strenuously clean ethics in private life were a kind of “block” that often stopped my hand earlier from putting pen to paper. I may add though, when I wrote a letter to him on his induction as Finance Minister in the tainted and compromised Rao ministry, I did voice my misgivings in a light, guarded way. He had, I said, “fallen among Congressmen”, or words to that effect, and needed to watch each step he took on that slippery track. For by 1991, the Congress of the Raos and others of his ilk, had, after its moral erosion under the Indira dynasty, already become a sick organisation plagued by all conceivable maladies, whatever its electoral gains in a confused state of the nation. Dr Manmohan Singh’s debut or political baptism under such dubious circumstances did perplex a number of his admirers even when his economic agenda became, at that time, a toast of the country in general and a thing of global acclaim, my own reservations notwithstanding.

Before I come to some particulars, and to Dr Manmohan Singh’s problematics of adjustment in an almost untenable situation under the fallen “icon” called Ms Sonia Gandhi, I have to clear up the ideological confusion that often prevails when people try to keep one kind of economic vision and another type of political path. The confusion arises from the general notion that one’s politics and one’s economics can live in comfortable company if economics is treated as a purely fiscal issue, and allowed to take its free impersonal, amoral, natural or open course. Politics will always remain politics — devious and dubious, and a minefield of mischief. Such a confused view prevails if politics is understood only as a question of votes, governance and power. For in the larger existential-philosophical sense, politics is an all-inclusive phenomenon that includes everything from your pocket and purse to your platonism and prayers, everything from your utopian dreams to the buttons on your shirt-sleeve.

“Everything is politics”, wrote Swiss writer Keller long ago. And I’am reminded also of an insightful comment by Thomas Mann who, after seeing the Nazi horrors in his beloved Germany, wrote: “In our time, the destiny of man presents its meaning in political terms.” Such a visionary statement needs to be kept in mind, always and ever.

To return, then, to Dr Manmohan Singh’s initiation and the questionable mode of inducting him into the Rajya Sabha from Assam, we have to watch with dismay so many cases of his party’s degradation — cases of open, unashamed corruption at the highest level, cases of political chicanery and casuistry, including the Babri Masjid demolition, the infamous Solanki episode concerning the Bofors deal, the purchase of obliging Parliament members to save the ministry among scores of other scandals, etc — that I do not know how such a morally fine and sensitive person as the former Finance Minister could still sup with such a crowd, given his economic dynamism and achievement. And he continued to be the right man in the wrong place, an odd man in for five long years! I am sure he must have had some deeply disturbing moments of retrospection and introspection in that period, and yet a prisoner of his position, he must have rationalised his ways to keep his conscience in place.

It was, in reality, a huge mismatch of talent and power. But all such inward “wars” have to be won in the fastnesses of one’s heart. How could, I argued, a man of his maturity and vision be inveigled into a ministry whose Prime Minister had so many skeletons in his politicalcupboard, including his ignoble role as Home Minister at the time of the massive Sikh killings in Delhi and around in that infamous year of 1984? Clearly, playing the “Polonious” to Rajiv Gandhi and serving as convenient, obliging tool thereafter!

And then came his failure to win the Lok Sabha seat from New Delhi which I trust could have been a turning point, a moment of choice in a crisis. But the tight-lipped, domineering Sonia, though a person of poor political judgement, and wanting in great leadership qualities, still had enough commonsense to offer Dr Manmohan Singh a bait — leadership of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha —, and he again allowed (as far as I can guess) his better instincts and impulses to remain sleeping, as it were. He ought to have understood one thing clearly by that time. India would never accept a dynastic relic to determine its future tomorrow, or thereafter. And the continuing erosion of the Congress combined with revolts and repudiation of her authority within the higher ranks of the party could not but make a man like Dr Manmohan Singh very, very uncomfortable. Dynastic politics or the politics of patrimony (with Priyanka waiting in the wings in vain) alone should have sufficed to make him walk out on the “house” of feudal dreams.

His own radical, egalitarian past (best exemplified in his famous paper at a world meeting before his acceptance of Mr Rao’s offer) was a clear point of reference and return. I’m not doubting his bona fides — far from it — for the change in his economic thought after the death of the socialist dream in Moscow was a part of the Zeitgeist or time-spirit, though he could have still followed a radical, humanist independent course as an academic of the highest calibre anywhere in the world. Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen is a shining example of the imago I’m seeking in our distinguished scholar and gentleman. For my faith in Dr Manmohan Singh’s credentials remains unshaken even today. There’s a disarming sweetness in his tongue and in his culture of address and discourse. I may, as well, add that I have hardly known Dr Manmohan Singh in any close manner. A few chance encounters well before his spectacular rise from officialdom to ministerial eminence did leave, though, an impression of his suavity, his earned refinements and his invisible but felt graces.

As the readers must have divined, my impressions and assumptions are a part of this statement on Dr Manmohan Singh’s problematics, and the effort all along has been to account for the apparent contradictions in his position. The distressing hiatus between his moral credentials and his political conduct remains a thing of speculation. And I have yet to see any reference to this dilemma in his own speeches and statements. Which, a friend suggests, could be attributed to his political pragmatism, having remained a part of the governing establishment in some of the top economic positions for a long number of years. But I find this an insufficient argument. For true pragmatism of which the American William James speaks so eloquently in his books is a philosophy in which the realities of the moment and the mileau are combined with those fundamental aspects of human ethics which can never be jettisoned in any deal or enterprise. And most certainly, Dr Manmohan Singh’s past suggests no such deviations or departures.

Some of the recent rumblings in the Congress hierarchy and the reports regarding Dr Manmohan Singh’s unhappiness about the party’s stance in regard to the economic issues now on the plate of the NDA Finance Minister, Mr Yashwant Sinha, perhaps are some of the straws in the air indicative of his final disenchantment. But, as I’ve said above, all this is highly speculative, and our perplexity abides.

Information technology & the poor-II
by Rajendra S. Pawar

AS the computer-aided transformation depends vitally on the rapidity with which a high bandwidth information highway will girdle the globe, there are fears that for the poor who do not have access to even a telephone, the World Wide Web will degenerate into a World Wide Wait. However, this need not necessarily be so.

In the industrial age, the colonies were developed merely as a base for cheap raw materials. With information as the critical raw material of the new age, the fascination for land will reduce. On the contrary, there is a stake for all the corporations in the developed world in seeing to it that the investments in the information highway are universal. For knowledge blesseth those who give as much as those who take. A new international political paradigm is born.

What about the capacity of the poor to respond to the hi-tech demand of the Internet? Will the computer repel the poor and the illiterate? The experiments at the NIIT/R&D section show that it need not be so. Slum children exposed to a touch screen computer with no one to teach them were found to have developed a way of learning by themselves and teaching others to learn. When the experiment was repeated in a rural hinterland never exposed to modernity, similar results followed.

The lesson is clear: people can spontaneously respond to the computer breaking through its mystery all by themselves. The computer is people-friendly even now. It will be even more so in the future as cosmologist and Nobel laureate Arno Penzias has forecast: as cheap as a postage stamp and will be produced in as many quantities. For the manufacturers and designers there is a stake in making them as people-friendly as possible. The proposition holds good for software designers too. Besides, for the first time this machine in its networked form is empowering the poor as no other human invention down the last five millennia has done (except, may be, the fire).

Among far-away communities illiterate women are emerging as a force to reckon with in the knowledge era. Witness what the cellular phone in the hands of poor illiterate women in Bangladesh villages has done. Look at the way Andhra Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu has become a cult figure even among politicians. In Medak district a computerised health care system is bringing basic health care to every single person in far-away villages at the cost of just Rs 100 per person per year. The district has already reduced its population growth to near zero. The knowledge era will be bereft of meaning if it does not address the concerns of the poor more than that of the rich.

It is because of this that the main challenge of the knowledge economy, as Dr Penzias has remarked, will be to “employ people and technology to bridge the gaps within human society itself”. “The picture of a network carrying sophisticated computer designs across oceans and continents — while also serving as a global forum for the grievances of impoverished villagers — provides a graphic example of the use of human ingenuity for human benefit”, the Nobel laureate says.

I believe that human ingenuity will be a matter as much of feeling and emotion as of mechanics of information processing. The paradigm shift from the belief of the industrial age that all knowledge emanated from nature must be noted. The focus is back on man himself, actually to man-built environments. In “Computer Power and Human Reason” Joseph Weizenbaum, himself a computer scientist, enshrines the mind back in the computer world.

To me it appears that the challenge is to teach computers to understand the human mind with all its feelings and emotions. The digital programmer will have to be an artist as well. This need of the knowledge era is where India will be best placed to contribute. I think what the Indian mind has done in the Silicon Valley in America and in the little silicon enclaves of India is just the beginning. The curtain is about to go up on the full play itself. The mind play.

(Concluded)

The writer, a leading figure in the area of information technology, is the Chairman of the NIIT.

Toffee is no more
by V. N. Datta

TOFFEE dear is no more. He died on June 27 around 11 a.m. His death was sudden. We never thought he would go away just like that. After his usual morning walk, he was used to taking a nap under a cot, and this time too we thought he was keeping to his schedule. We never realised that his nap was going to be an eternal sleep, and then he would leave us sad and forlorn for all time to come. To say the least, he died heroically; his was a beautiful death, a splendid one! It is rich to die like that suddenly without a cry, or groan.

This is the story of Toffee who joined our family about 11 years ago on the Kurukshetra University campus. He was then a month old. My wife and I were averse to the idea of keeping dogs as such a venture would add up to our responsibilities, and worry, and curtail our mobility. Dogs scared me too. As an avid reader of Shakespeare I know that he loathed the whole stock of dogs. He disliked their cringing, fawning, and servility, and their habit of attacking people in the front and rear surreptiously.

It was not choice but force of circumstances that brought Toffee to us. He had been gifted to our daughter by a police officer. She had to go abroad, and one fine morning she brought him to us. We had no alternative but to welcome the “intruder”. Like other members of his stock, he ceased to grow after two years. He hailed from Kinnaur in Himachal Pradesh and was a mixed breed, a Colle type, a medium size, of Wolfish looks, beautiful eyes, a pointed nose and a golden coat covering him all round. He had a dash of white hair on the down, and his fluffy tail curled upwards.

Toffee was immensely popular with all and sundry. He would welcome the guests with a leap, much to their embarrassment. But there was no question of biting anyone. He would not like to be tied; he was a freedom-loving individual who rebelled against any type of authority imposed on him. But he lived joyfully within a system that observed a proper code of conduct. But on ocassions when his rivals attacked him, he would defend himself or preferably run away for his self-protection, and seek protection in his residence. Retreat in such circumstances was prudent. After all, discretion is the better part of valour.

Toffee was aristocratic in his bearing and tastes. Fastidious in his habits, he would choose the best and sleep in the A/c room. While standing on the back seat of the car, he would survey the whole scene thinking that he was the master of the universe.

Are Indians animal lovers? This question I have posed to quite a number of people whose reply was that they would spend their time on rearing children rather than wasting on animals. Nirad C. Chaudhari has examined the Indian attitude towards the flora and fauna of the country in his controversial work Continent of Circe. His conclusion is that Indians generally show aversion to keeping pets which is due to their avaracious, acquisitive and grasping nature. His view is that Indians show a marked tendency of grabbing and gaining whatever they can rather than giving anything of their own. Such a habit of mind denies them the opportunity of being “humanised”. That is why the milk of human kindness is dried up in them.

The origin of dogs is a much debated question. The original stock is unknown but the various species of wolf and jackal have been regarded as ancestors. It is generally believed that no trace of dogs is found in the primitive state in India. In ancient India, animals were sacrificed to propitiate the gods. It is curious that Yudhishtra declined to go to Swarga without his dog (Atma) which demonstrates his high sense of piety, compassion and tenderness towards animals.

Toffee lived under the care of my wife. With me it was “Good-morning” tea company when he would enjoy on a crisp biscuit. Then he would see me off on my way to professional work. In the evening he would give a hearty welcome with a smile and wagging tail, and follow me to my study. During the meals and the 9 O’ clock night news he would stand like a sentinal duty-bound and thereafter quietly lie down close by on a carpet for sleep.

A dog commonly lives up to 10 or 12 years, at the most 20. Toffee was about 11 and a half. We thought there was nothing serious when he fell slightly ill. He was eating and sleeping well, but he seemed restless. On June 26 he could not sit or sleep. But he was looking with eager eyes on us, as though “I am in trouble, help me if you can, or else I am going”. He would push me with his paw and looked utterly helpless. Oh, my God, what a look it was, most unforgettable, a look of self-pity and a stare. We sought medical help, and there was another check-up on June 27 at 11 a.m. just after 10.30 a.m. he followed me to my study and lay down.

We felt relieved that he was going to sleep. A few moments later we found that he was gone for ever. “Rest is silence”. He was buried in a lonely spot shadowed over by trees and verdure. Our daughter lit a candle on his grave. There was a whisper, “O Traveller, remember, we lie here. And also remember that we too gave love and affection to humankind”. Gardening and animal love are perhaps the noblest, the finest, and most unselfish of all human activities in life.

Pursuit of Bofors villains reduced to a farce
From Alfred de Tavares in Stockholm

INDIAN authorities’ efforts to bring to book Bofors officials involved in the alleged kickbacks scandal surrounding the 1986 howitzer deal have run into embarrassing hitches, most of them of their own creation.

Summons for Bofors officials to appear before a court in Delhi, where the trial on the bribes charges is in progress, have been served much too late, at times even to the wrong persons, according to Swedish authorities.

“It is quite pathetic that 14 years after the scandal around the howitzer order, the Indian authorities appear not even to know which persons or companies they want,” a Swedish Foreign Office legal department official, requesting anonymity, said. “One would imagine that at least their embassy in Stockholm would be capable of setting them right.”

Despite the publicly flaunted unequivocal refusal by former Bofors chief Martin Ardbo and others to appear before the Indian court, a Delhi magistrate has since last summer served them summons five times, each time meeting with the same scornful rejection.

However, the fact that no one turned up for the latest date set, June 2, was quite another matter — none could have conceivably done so. The summons were delivered by the Indian Embassy in Stockholm to the Swedish Foreign Ministry no earlier than June 6. Moreover, nobody had bothered to mention where the desired Bofors people should present themselves. Notwithstanding these anomalies, the Foreign Ministry sent on the summons.

“It was, indeed, meaningless and we told the Indian Embassy, but even so they insisted that we formally deliver the documents. We did so,” said Ingrid Herzog, legal counsellor at the Foreign Ministry.

And there were more blunders in store. Summons were made out to a person who had nothing whatsoever to do with the Indian howitzer order — Jan Kihlberg, chairman of the board of NobelTech, a company within the chemical concern Akzo Nobel with no ties with Bofors. The explanation appears to be that Bofors has changed owners and organisational structuring several times since 1986. And NobelTech now has the organisational number of the old Ab Bofors, the firm that had signed the contract with India.

“A cursory glance at our annual reports would have supplied this elementary information,” said Anders Florenius, the information director at Celsius, the holding company of Bofors. “Since the Indian contract nothing remains in the company today. No employees, no production.”

At both Bofors and Celsius, the stand vis-a-vis the Indian demands remains unchanged. “Within the Celsius sphere we decided to pay no heed to any Indian summons,” said Florenius. “We have already so stated, unequivocally, but they will persist.”

When it was pointed out that such an attitude could have repercussions in India, such as Celsius assets there being frozen, Florenius replied: “We have taken that account into consideration in reaching our decision.”

Since India lifted its unilaterally imposed embargo last year on importing Bofors-related goods, Bofors, now known as Bofors Weapons Systems (BWS), is making efforts to sign a new multi-billion kronor howitzer contract with India, albeit under the name Celsius.

Asked whether in view of this potential business should not the BWS comply with the requirements of the Indian court, Per Ove Moberg, the present director of Celsius but who was actively involved in the 1986 deal, replied: “Not at all. The BWS that exists today did not write that (1986) contract and is no party to it in any aspect whatsoever. Hence they can have no bearing on any dealings (with India) that may arise any time in the future.”

Moberg emphasised: “We are not at all part of this ongoing process. We are not involved with the contract.”

“However,” he added, “when the matter was current, during the period 1986-1987, we provided all the relevant information we could. Now we have nothing more to add.”

—India Abroad News Service

French help for sub programme
From Ranvir Nayar in Paris

FRANCE has agreed to help India revive its aborted submarine construction programme, which has been in limbo since the German firm HDW withdrew from a collaborative venture nearly a decade ago.

The matter was discussed at length during the meeting of the Indo-French High Committee on Defence held here last week. The French Augusta-class submarines are reported to be amongst the best in their category and future Indo-French cooperation is envisaged to be based on this class.

Initially, the two sides will cooperate till the entire programme that was conceived under the HDW deal is completed. The French are likely to help India construct submarines that are upgraded versions of the basic HDW design. Sources said the project could then easily be expanded if the cooperation is found to be mutually beneficial.

The two sides have agreed to work out details of the envisaged cooperation, including the pricing and elements that the French will bring into the project. Once the framework is clearly outlined, the two sides will sign an agreement to start the project.

“However, we don’t expect the entire process to take a long time and if a deal is reached, the project could be off the ground within a year,” official sources said here.

The new submarines could form the second largest component of the Indian submarine fleet, which is currently dominated by Russian Kilo-class vessels. Under a newly approved 30-year submarine building programme, the Indian Navy wants to establish two separate lines of production, one of which will use Russian designs while the other is based on western technology. This has been done to ensure that the navy does not become too dependent on one source of technology.

Under the agreement signed with HDW in the late eighties, the German firm had agreed to sell complete submarines and also transfer technology and give India the licence to manufacture the vessels.

The deal, however, came under a cloud in the early nineties due to allegations of kickbacks. India received one HDW submarine and three more were constructed on an assembly line set up at Mumbai’s Mazagon naval dockyard. Since then, this production line has been lying idle.

The Indian Navy has been looking for suitable partners to use the infrastructure already set up in Mumbai. The search has picked up pace and acquired a sense of urgency following last year’s conflict in Kargil and the consequent heightened tensions with Pakistan.

The Indian Navy has also been worried about the Pakistan Navy’s acquisition of Augusta-class submarines. One of the submarines has been supplied to Pakistan while two more are expected to be commissioned in the next few years.

— India Abroad News Service

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

True religion is as sunshine, since it consists in availing oneself of the divine source of power and inspiration — a source which, like the sun, is of unfailing an inexhaustible beneficence to all existing beings.

— Stanwood Cobb, Security for a Failing World

***

Does the Lord care for all the wealth that one may offer Him love and devotion. What He values are only love and devotion, discrimination and renunciation for His sake.

— Sri Ramakrishna Paramhamsa, Sayings, 669

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Rama’s address to a respectable audience begins —Brave Soldiers,

not that ye kill men, but ye kill time.

— From Swami Ramatirtha’s Note Book VII, In Woods of God Realisation

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To move in the proper way is Tao (the Path)

To act in harmony is Teh (Virtue).

All that is not benevolent, not righteous, not decorous, not wise and not trustworthy is errant. To be errant is disgraceful, and if carried to an extreme, it is detrimental. Therefore, the superior man is ever careful in his action.

— Chow Tun Yi, The Book of Universality, 5

***

The principle which governs this world of becoming is called Karma. There are moral and spiritual laws as well as physical laws. If we neglect the laws of health, we injure our health; if we neglect the laws of morality, we wreck our higher life. Any rational conception of the universe, and spiritual conception of God requires us to recognise the utter and unquestionable supremacy of law in shaping our conduct and character.

The law of Karma is not external to the individual. The judge is not without but within. The law by which virtue brings its triumph and ill-doing its retribution is the unfolding the law of our being. The world order is the reflection of the Divine Mind.

— S. Radhakrishnan, The Principal Upanishads, Introduction.

***

The worst things, however, are the petty thoughts. Verily, better to have done evilly than to have thought pettily!

To be sure, ye say: “The delight in petty evils spareth one many a great evil deed.” But here one should not wish to be sparing.

Like a boil is the evil deed! It itcheth and irritatech and breaketh forth — it speaketh honourably.

“Behold, I am disease,” saith the evil deed: that is its honourableness.

But like infection is the petty thought; it creepeth and hideth, and wanteth to be no where — until the whole body is decayed and withered by the petty infection.

— Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra, second part, chapter 25.