Now non-market economy

Some believe in changing the rules of the game if they cannot prevail over their rivals — the shifting-the-goal-post mindset. India has joined this group in its panic over the prospects of large-scale import of consumer goods from China. This is so despite the reassuring words of Prime Minister Vajpayee that non-oil imports have come down in the past financial year. The government is set to give powers to the Designated Authority to prevent dumping to declare China and all former communist countries as non-market economies, warranting a different set of rules to determine dumping. And the traditional rule of the thumb says that if the export price is lower than the local price, there is an element of subsidy and hence it is a case of dumping. Until now this was the country’s position.

The Indian government accepts this reality but gives it a different spin. China’s is not a market economy where the so-called free market determines all economic and industrial activity like investment, production level, price and interest rate. Industrial investment attracts interest of about 5 per cent or less while in Japan it is about 3 per cent and in India it is 11 per cent for blue chip borrowers. In this country the inflation rate is more than 5 per cent and hence the real cost of capital comes to 6 per cent as against 5 per cent in China. Having condemned China for not developing a full-blooded market economy, India says it will be dumping if a commodity is sold at less than its normal value and lower than what a similar one from a market economy country costs. Even a pure nationalist will find this theory arbitrary and uneconomic in its basic thrust. It also negatives India’s strident stand on labour reform. India has maintained that the demand of the West to improve the standard of living of the workforce is an indirect attack on its efforts to export more. Now it uses the same western argument against China. China is not a member of the WTO and that alone does not justify this double talk. 

Democracy in Pakistan

Today the 18-party hotch-potch of political parties in Pakistan will make another attempt to go public with their demand for the early restoration of democracy. When the Alliance for Restoration of Democracy was launched shortly after General Pervez Musharraf appointed himself Chief Executive by dislodging Mr Nawaz Sharif it attracted positive notice in the media. However, the ARD script for the restoration of democracy has now begun to bore even its ardent sympathisers. The fact that the Pakistan Muslim League of Mr Nawaz Sharif and the People's Party of Ms Benazir Bhutto were part of the grand alliance was largely responsible for arousing more than routine interest in the initiative. The rest of the parties do not count for much. But the big deal between the Chief Executive and Mr Nawaz Sharif, living in exile in exchange for life, made the PML lose much of its political credibility. Ms Bhutto's continued absence from Pakistan, for fear of being arrested, has had the same effect on the PPP cadres. The reason why the ARD has become a dead movement, even before it could show signs of life, has less to do with the political complexion of the present regime and more with the composition of the heterogenous alliance.

As Chief Executive of the military dictatorship General Musharraf would have surprised even himself had he allowed the ARD to hold pro-democracy rallies in the country. It was stopped from mobilising public opinion in favour of democracy on two earlier occasions. If it really had enjoyed popular support, as its leaders claimed it did while launching the movement, the military rulers would not have been able to stop it from holding rallies in Lahore and Karachi.. It is unlikely that the ARD would run into political luck in Quetta, the venue of today's proposed pro-democracy rally. Of course, General Musharraf too has not acted wisely by ordering the detention of the ARD leaders. The movement simply does not have the numbers to pose any serious threat to him. By ordering the detention of the so-called pro-democracy leaders he has allowed them to become heroes at least in their own eyes. Had he let them have their bit of political limelight in Lahore and Karachi, and in Quetta today, they would have done a bit of filibustering like the Hyde Park orators of London and gone back home happy carrying with them exaggerated tales of what they had done for restoring democracy in Pakistan. However, the problem with dictators is that they don't allow even phony democrats to strike shallow political roots.

Suicidal course

Maintaining peace in West Asia can be trickier than holding sand in your fist. Even the semblance of uneasy calm has been shattered by a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv which killed more than 20 Israelis on Saturday. Israel is holding its hand for now, but it is obvious that retaliation will come sooner or later. That sort of assured revenge has kept the blood feud going for decades. Hardly anyone can bet that the ceasefire announced by Palestinian President Yasser Arafat would bring about any improvement in the situation. Ironically, the order was perhaps issued sometime before the suicide mission. Had the bomber not intervened in such a gruesome manner, it could have been hailed as an act of statesmanship. The order was in keeping with what the international community had recommended. A statement condemning attack on civilians accompanied the ceasefire offer. Mr Arafat even ordered his security forces to "implement a total and immediate ceasefire on Israeli targets, in all sectors under the Palestinian Authority's control, even by force". Unfortunately, it became public only after the news of the Tel Aviv massacre broke out and many believed that it was issued in fear of Israeli retaliation. Israelis themselves thought so. Their Cabinet issued an exceptionally harsh statement withdrawing its earlier unilateral ceasefire and almost threatened that it would annihilate the Palestinian Authority. Not only that, it accused Mr Arafat of being involved in terrorism, of encouraging it and inciting hatred. This verbal aggression itself would be enough to damage the position of the Authority among the hardline militants that barely accept its mandate.

The consequences will be undesirable in Israel too. Of late, a feeling had been growing within the country that its security forces should show more restraint while dealing with the Palestinians. The belief in their own cause was weakening, so much so that many young men had started refusing to be drafted into the army which is mandatory. Normally, Israelis look forward to being drafted at the age of 18 for three years and being called up for an annual reserve duty until 51. Now there were many who thought that while it was all right to guard the borders of the country, they should not be sent to the West Bank and Gaza Strip since that is not Israel. The suicide mission has blown the burgeoning peace movement to smithereens. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has suddenly found many new takers for his hawkish postures. In the parched desert, it is well nigh impossible to make the tender peace plant grow roots, it seems. 

Wanted: South Asian Economic Community
EU can provide necessary expertise
M. V. Kamath

First, a personal note which will explain what follows. In 1954 I had the opportunity to travel through war-torn West Germany. I visited Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt and Koln. World War II had ended in 1945 but nine years later, the scars of war were still painfully visible; many buildings were still in a broken down condition and people lived like animals in tumble-down homes. Next I went to Paris. Some friends had arranged for me to meet Mon Jean Monnet, father of the concept of the European Economic Community (EEC). I told him that I had just returned from a visit to bombed out cities in Germany and asked him whether, in the prevailing circumstances, he really thought a European Economic Community was at all possible. His answer still rings in my ears. He said: “Young man, you just wait and see. A European Economic Community is a historical necessity”.

The EEC, which began with the initiation of the European Coal and Steel Community, was not brought about overnight. From 1959 to 1967, as the European correspondent of a national paper I covered practically every major meeting of the six-member organisation, watched how, at every step, France fought the others, especially in regard to agricultural prices, but, in the end, Mon. Monnet’s dream has been fulfilled.

I now quote from The Economist (May 19): “For more than 40 years, the Iron Curtain divided the continent of Europe between a prosperous and free West and an impoverished and oppressed East. The European Economic Community, originally made up of six members, gradually expanded to take in almost all of the western part of the continent. More recently it signalled its growing integration by changing its name to the European Union.... The enlargement of the EU is intended to erase the East-West division left by the Cold War, but it is also about binding the wounds remaining from World War II. The creation, in the 1950s of what became the European Union was intended above all, to make any further wars between Germany and France unthinkable.... France and Germany, which fought three devastating wars between 1870 and 1945 are now the closest of partners....”

There is much more now to contemporary history. The European Union (EU) has now come to be seen as so fruitful that waiting to be integrated and standing in the queue are Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, the three Baltic states (Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia) Slovenia, Slovakia, Cyprus and Malta, Rumania and Bulgaria — not to speak of Turkey. writes The Economist again: “Having buried old conflicts in the West of the continent, the EU now wants to repeat the performance in the East. Joschka Fischer, Germany’s Foreign Minister, put the argument bluntly in a much-discussed recent speech on the future of Europe. He said: “An EU restricted to Western Europe would forever have had to deal with a divided system in Europe: In western Europe integration, in Eastern Europe the old system of balance of power with the permanent danger of nationalist ideologies and confrontations.... In the long term this would make Europe a continent of uncertainty and in the medium term these traditional lines of conflict would shift from Eastern Europe to EU again. If that happened, Germany, in particular, would be the big loser”.

There is a moral in this for both India and Pakistan. These two countries that are so close to each other, have more shared values than France and Germany ever had, now have necessarily to get together. If after fighting three major wars between 1870 and 1945, France and Germany could get together in a European Union, then there is every reason why India and Pakistan should come together in a shared vision. That vision should not be blocked by aimless talk of jehadis, plebiscites, referendums etc. Prime Minister Vajpayee put the matter succinctly in his letter to Gen Pervez Musharraf when he spoke of India and Pakistan having poverty as a common enemy.

One way to meet all contingencies is to have what may be loosely described as a Indo-Pak Confederation that includes an autonomous and united Jammu and Kashmir. The pro-partition Jammu and Kashmir must be resuscitated. It need not join either Pakistan or India, nor need it have azaadi — independence. It can be autonomous within an Indo-Pak Confederation, the contours of which can be worked out over the years. Neither Rome nor the European Union were built in a day, but the truth is that they were built and they remain a model to us. A South Asian Union (SAU) must start with accepting a united Jammu & Kashmir (that includes what is today Pakistan occupied Kashmir) as an autonomous unit which is neither independent nor part of either India or Pakistan. It becomes part of a confederation.

It is win-win situation in which the hopes and desires of all three: India, Pakistan and an autonomous Jammu and Kashmir, are more than fulfilled. It brings all three together. The modalities can be worked out, given the desire to see the Greater Vision of a tension-free and prosperous South Asia where there is no victor and no vanquished.

Both India and Pakistan are presently speaking in the language of the fifties and the seventies. Both countries have long passed that stage and now they must move forward. Talk of making the Line of Control as an international boundary, of maintaining the status quo, of holding tripartite talks between representatives of Pakistan, India and the Hurriyat is singularly meaningless. They will only end in frustration and bitterness and everyone has had enough of it. Is that the game we are planning to play all over again? Neither the Simla Agreement, nor the Lahore Declaration brought peace to South Asia. And about of talks between Gen Musharraf and Atal Behari Vajpayee will not bring peace either if we don’t see the future of South Asia in a different light.

Granting a united Jammu and Kashmir autonomy within a confederation — and this should be made abundantly clear — is a face-saving device for all three. In this situation everybody is a winner. It is possible — and it is necessary. What a Confederation or a South Asian Economic Community, or a South Asian Union means can be worked out. The EEC can provide us with all the expertise necessary. What took the warring European nations years to achieve, we in South Asia can achieve in months if not weeks. And the South Asian Economic Community (SAEC) can — and surely should — include Bangladesh and Sri Lanka as well, not to mention Nepal.

We have to talk in the language of the 21st century, not in the jaded voice of the fifties and seventies. True, even in Europe and within the EU, France is having reservations over an expanded EU lest that give Germany an undue influence but, says The Economist: “Given the strong consensus among EU leaders that enlargement must come, it would be hard for France (or Spain, for that matter) to wreck the process...” We should be able to say the same about the hardline India-haters in Islamabad, that they should not be allowed to disrupt the formation of a South Asian Economic Community whose time has come.

Goodies that came by post
Bimal Bhatia

Hardev, our postman, is physically challenged with one leg afflicted with polio. In the scorching summer heat or when people are indoors, shut away from the biting cold, he does his round delivering your mail. If you happen to be outside, he hands you the lot of letters with a smile; otherwise he silently slips them in your mailbox. You can notice the effort he makes while mounting and dismounting his bike every 20 yards, as he moves from house to house covering his beat.

Not many people respond to his ring with the promptness it deserves when there is a registered letter or some under-stamped correspondence with a due to be collected. And not many people thank him after collecting the packages because their mind is occupied with opening the mail to see if it brings any cheerful news. There’s no thought about bringing some cheer in the work of a man who painstakingly delivers your mail day after day, the whole year through.

Actually, the likes of Hardev were already beginning to feel unwanted and underemployed. What with the Internet and email, the global village now appears a virtual reality shrinking time, space, and distance. Connected to the net are villages like Naila where President Bill Clinton boogied with women who willingly jettisoned their coyness and impressed the visiting dignitary with their use of the Internet. The Internet has given a new meaning to relationships.

To send a greeting card by post was fashionable. Your loved ones looked forward to some good wishes on their birthday, anniversary, festivals and the new year. Old timers would know that the Post and Telegraph department even has a facility for sending greetings telegrams. The list of standard phrases covers almost all occasions. Included in the list for you to choose are diverse phrases to suit your requirements — Heartiest Divali Greetings; Many Happy Returns of the Day; Hearty Congratulations on Success in Election; Many Thanks for your Good Wishes which I/We Reciprocate Most Heartily; May Heaven’s Choicest Blessings be showered on the Young Couple; Sincere Greetings for the Republic Day. Long Live the Republic.

Forty such phrases are listed for you to choose an appropriate message and wire it to the recipient to whom it is delivered in a suitable envelope. In times when this service was patronised, these messages took 24 or even 48 or more hours to be delivered, depending upon how well the telegraph network served the destination. No wonder the greetings telegram has met a slow death with the proliferation of STD booths and now the Internet, the latter of which people can use to send e-greetings months in advance, to be delivered on the intended day.

Even the courier service now easily available in every street tended to sideline the traditional post. For the consumer it meant choosing between a slow and reasonably unreliable postal service — despite the likes of Hardev — and the modern communication means now available.

I learnt the hard way and started sending my contributions to the editor by courier. For those that he likes and sends into print, I get my cheques by post. That’s one reason why I keep a tab on Hardev and how difficult it is for him to deliver those goodies.

How NZCC landed in financial mess
Reeta Sharma

The birth of the North Zone Cultural Centre (NZCC) in 1985 was to send the signal that India was progressing. The venue chosen to house the NZCC was Patiala and the then Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, had himself flown-in to inaugurate its opening to send yet another signal that attention was being paid to the development of culture in the North, terrorism of Punjab and J and K notwithstanding.

The Centre had opened seven such centres all over the country. A corpus fund of Rs 983 lakh was created to run the NZCC, which took its first step in fits and starts as there was no tested policy or precedents. For instance, the very first budget of the NZCC presented to the general body was unaudited, inviting criticism and debate.

The NZCC aims were to preserve and promote arts of the zone, besides highlighting the rich diversity of the culture with special emphasis on folk and tribal arts, including the vanishing art forms. The NZCC was also to involve youth in cultural interaction. Each ZCC was to further open sub-centres.

The NZCC represents Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jammu and Kashmir and Chandigarh. To monitor its working a general body was constituted with 46 members representing these states, various academies, chairpersons of all the national academies and nominees of the central government.

Fifteen years later today, the NZCC is in a financial mess. The foundation of its financial mismanagement was laid in 1994 when the then Director, S.K. Ahluwalia, invested Rs 315 lakh of the corpus fund in HMT in unsecured bonds without any collateral security.

As per the agreement with HMT, the NZCC was to receive Rs 50.40 lakh interest at the rate of 16 per cent per annum. But HMT never paid the full amount of interest due from 1994 to 2000. Of the total Rs 302.40 lakh due for these years, HMT paid only Rs 145.98 lakh. The total interest loss alone to NZCC turned out to be Rs 156.42 lakh. Besides, the principal amount of Rs 315 lakh was to be refunded to the NZCC in 1998.

As if this was not enough , the NZCC still went ahead to repeat the blunder by investing Rs 468 lakh in SAIL. Allegedly, S.K. Ahluwalia also deposited Rs 220 lakh with Patiala Central Co-operative Bank Ltd. because his own brother, A.K. Ahluwalia, was the branch Manager.

It took six years and a hard taskmaster like Lt.-Gen (retd) J. F. R. Jacob, the present Chairman of the NZCC in the capacity of Governor of Punjab, to retrieve the NZCC from the financial quagmire. “The Chairman has taken a very personal interest and with perseverance has been following the recovery of money from HMT and SAIL. He has even spoken to the ministries concerned to ask both the public sector undertakings to refund the NZCC money at the earliest. We are consistently in dialogue with them over this issue. It is entirely because of the Chairman’s efforts that HMT has even offered one-time settlement of the entire amount. However, the offer was not found to be reasonable and judicious by the governing body chaired by General Jacob. Hence, the offer was rejected”, reveals R.T. Jindal, the present Director, NZCC.

It still remains a mystery why the General Body failed to take cognizance of the lurking danger of losing the NZCC money invested in HMT and SAIL specially when even the interest due was not being honoured. Reportedly, only a few members like Balwant Thakur from J and K or H.S. Bhatti from Punjab raised objections about the NZCC’s affairs.

Anyway, General Jacob has formulated a five-member committee to recover the principal and interest from HMT. This committee includes Maj-Gen. Himmat Singh Gill (retd.), Naresh Gulati, IAS from Haryana, H.S. Bhatti of Punjab Kala Bhavan, Vivek Attri, Director, Public Relations, Chandigarh Administration, and R.T. Jindal, the Director, NZCC. As a result of the efforts of this committee, HMT offered its land either in Bangalore or Pinjore for sale to recover the amount. “I got the revenue records of both pieces of land surveyed. But it appears that the title of these lands is not clear. Hence it is difficult to accept this bargain. However, we are hopeful that we shall be able to set the record straight soon. Since January 2000, we have already recovered Rs 197 lakh from them. Besides, a commitment from HMT regarding refund of the balance principal amount in the current year itself has also been obtained. Similarly, the amount due from SAIL till 1998 was Rs 468 lakh. In the current year, we have already recovered Rs 271 lakh from them”, disclosed General Jacob.

The amount recovered has been reinvested in the fixed deposits with the nationalised banks by bargaining for a higher rate of interest than the general rate of 8.5 per cent.

On the cultural promotion front, the NZCC’s role once again is questionable. The stress throughout has been on performances by folk artistes at paltry fees. No significant work has been done to revive the dying folk arts of the zone like “Marasies” of Punjab, “Ragini” of Haryana etc.

Unlike Pakistan, Punjab’s oldest, rich classical singing style of “Sufiana kalam” is also almost dead with only the Wadali brothers and Malerkotla singers trying to cling on to it.

The NZCC made no efforts to ensure that such a rich Punjabi singing style be passed on to the next generations by giving them alluring platforms, say in the form of attractive scholarships and stipends. The same can be said of “Ragini” or any such forms of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan.

As per records, S.K. Ahluwalia, held the post for unprecedented seven-and-a-half years, while, his immediate predecessor, A.S. Chattwal, held the post for less than a year. However, the first Director, NZCC, Gitika Kalha, also held the post for more than six years. It appears the central government has lost interest in the NZCC after its inauguration.

In the memorandum of the NZCC Clause 6 categorically states: “The central government will have an overall supervision and may issue directions for ensuring proper and effective functioning as and when required and the Society will carry out such directions”. How come the Centre never noticed that Rs 783 lakh of the total Corpus Fund of Rs 983 lakh got invested in unsecured bonds? Also why the Centre raised no questions even when HMT began defaulting on the interest due from the very first year of the deposit?

It appears that the NZCC rarely acknowledged the authority of the central government. Of the dozens of foreign trips made by S.K. Ahluwalia, in the name of promoting cultural programmes, he sought permission from the Secretary, Culture, and Government of India only thrice. Besides, on majority of these trips, his wife, a lecturer in dance, accompanied him as a choreographer. The trips to the foreign countries visited by the then Director, NZCC included eight visits to Dubai alone, apart from Switzerland, Singapore, South Africa, Nepal and England.

When contacted, the Additional Director, Cultural Affairs, Haryana, Kamal Tewari, clarified, “I am not aware of any such cultural performances conducted by the NZCC in foreign countries. At least from Haryana nobody has ever been recommended by our department to be included on such trips”.

Any queries about details and records with the NZCC only turn futile. The standard reply is that no record is available and that it got destroyed in 1993-94 floods that had engulfed Patiala. But even information and details after 1994 are also not made available. In the backdrop of this dismal picture, the Kala Gram, opposite the Manimajra Housing Complex, comes as relief. Here again, reportedly the architects had messed up by sketching shoddy designs. For instance, there were no windows in the dormitories meant for housing artists and crafts persons. Besides an apparent loss of space outdated idea of open-air theatre, the architects had not paid any attention to the arboriculture and entry to the Kala Gram.

General Jacob camped at the Kala Gram and made all essential changes. He has also formed a committee of experts in horticulture to design the arboriculture of the Kala Gram. The end result is a fascinating cluster of buildings in the Kala Gram with elegant pathways connecting each other with a provision of shrubs and creepers, lush green lawns and majestic trees. That is if you succeed in entering the Kala Gram for the tug-of-war over the entry is still on between the rigid architects of the Chandigarh Administration and the Chairman of the NZCC. 

French machos, beware the ‘Bitches’! 
Joelle Diderich

Ah, France. Land of gallantry, cradle of poets, where flirting is a national pastime and even footballers speak in verse.

You could be forgiven for thinking that here is a country where women have a natural advantage.

The cliche of the Latin lover has bestowed French men with an unparalleled reputation for romantic savoir-faire. Ageing screen heart-throb Alain Delon still melts hearts in Japan while Britain is in thrall to soccer players like David Ginola and his poetry-quoting predecessor Eric Cantona.

A closer look however reveals that the culture that invented etiquette also boasts a fine tradition of misogyny, stretching from the writings of Montaigne in the 16th century to the talk shows that crowd the radio airwaves today.

High-profile women still face the type of criticism that went out with the sexual revolution of the 1970s, either derided as “bitches” or accused of sleeping their way to the top.

After years of putting up with slurs that would have their U.S. counterparts up in arms, a group of prominent feminists has decided to bite back.

The association, which goes by the ironic name of Chiennes de Guarde (Guard Bitches), has struck fear into the hearts of die-hard machos with its promise to give a public mauling to any man who strays across the boundaries of political correctness.

“We, Guard Bitches, are showing our fangs. Directing a sexist insult at a woman in public life is equivalent to insulting all women,” the group declares in its manifesto.

“We commit to showing our support to women in public life who are attacked as women.”

Equality — not for all

It all began in 1999, when Environment Minister Dominique Voynet, meeting farmers angered by her ecological policies, was greeted with shouts of: “Take your knickers off, slut!”.

The Guard Bitches retorted with a scathing denouncement sent to all major newspapers and have used the tactic regularly as new cases crop up, fuelling acres of media coverage which has succeeded in tempering the urges of some male chauvinists.

“People are maybe becoming aware that an insult is in itself an abuse of power,” said Isabelle Alonso, President of the organisation and author of the recently published “Why I Am a Chienne de Garde”.

Getting that message across has been an uphill struggle for the activists, initially dismissed by some men as frustrated spinsters and rejected by image-conscious women who associate feminism with baggy dungarees and facial hair.

“There had been a very slow and effective sapping of the image of feminists which means that today, women don’t tend to want to recognise themselves as feminists because they think all the cliches conveyed about them are true,” said Alonso.

“I understand very well the reaction of women who don’t want to position themselves as victims,” she told Reuters in an interview. “But at the same time it’s really short-sighted. It’s not by denying a problem that you solve it.”

Statistics show that French women still lag behind men in virtually every aspect of public life. They occupy only a tenth of seats in the French parliament, the second lowest rate in Europe, and earn 20 per cent less than their male counterparts.

The Socialist government of Prime Minister Lionel Jospin has pledged to redress the balance, introducing a “parity law” at the last mayoral elections that obliges parties to put as many women as men on their lists of candidates, but progress is slow.

Alonso is not surprised

The roots of the inequality, she says, can be traced back to the French Revolution, which penned the concept of “liberte, egalite, fraternite” — but only for one half of the population.

“When the French revolutionaries and the French left of the 19th century spoke of humanity and human rights, you have to realise they were referring exclusively to men. Women were deliberately and totally excluded out of principle,” she said. Take 19th-century anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who famously said “property is theft”.

Even as he developed a blueprint for an egalitarian society, Proudhon advocated that a man should have the lawful right to murder his wife in circumstances including “obstinate, imperious and scornful insubordination”.

“A woman who exercises her intelligence becomes ugly, mad and a dog,” he warned. Reuters

No work to do, ministers tell PM

Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee gave a piece of his mind to a group of ministers who called on him to complain that they had no work to do.

Mr Vajpayee (74) gave a patient hearing to some 30 Ministers of State — the lowest rung of his three-tier government - during a 90-minute meeting at his residence over tea late Monday.

The ministers told Vajpayee that Cabinet ministers gave them no work, and that some of them felt as if they were on a paid holiday, said Minister of state for Science and Technology Bachi Singh Rawat.

Another minister said they detailed the “step-motherly treatment being meted out to them by Cabinet ministers.” Most of them were, however, taken by surprise when Vajpayee told them, politely but firmly, that they were barking up the wrong tree.

A minister quoted Mr Vajpayee as saying: “India is a vast country, and even if one takes up the role of a monitor in the ministry, it will keep the person on his toes 24 hours a day.”

Vajpayee told them that they could keep themselves busy overseeing if their ministries were meeting their targets. This, he said, “is a formidable challenge and they should do it.”

Minister Rawat said on Tuesday: “Vajpayee made some practical suggestions but at the same time promised to look into the personal problems of some ministers with their seniors.”

Monday’s meeting followed complaints the ministers had been voicing for almost six months. The prime minister had repeatedly told them that he would hear them out.

“But every time a meeting was convened, some major incident led to its cancellation,” said Rawat. “The last time it was called off due to the January earthquake in Gujarat.”

Finally, Vajpayee convened a dinner meeting on Monday. But the dinner was scrapped following the massacre of the royal family in Nepal. Said one minister: “We were not destined to dine with Vajpayee. He gave us tea instead.”

Some of the Ministers of State told the Prime Minister that it was frustrating that the Cabinet ministers monopolised all work. “It is like being on a paid holiday. We get busy only during the Parliament session when we study matters related to our department,” said one who did not want to be named.

The Vajpayee government comprises, besides him, 68 ministers — 27 of Cabinet rank, six Ministers of State with independent charge of their ministries, and 35 Ministers of State working under Cabinet ministers.

Minister of State for Rural Development Rita Verma has told friends that she has stopped coming to office and instead works from home. There are several other ministers with similar anecdotes.

One minister, Uma Bharati, stopped attending office complaining that cabinet minister Murli Manohar Joshi took all the decisions himself. Finally, the Prime Minister made her in charge of the Sports Ministry. IANS

Teens say adults don’t listen

Teenagers think adults do a pretty good job at helping them find jobs and they concede adults are fun but they’re lousy listeners, according to a national “report card” released on Tuesday.

A teen evaluation of adults was critical of adults’ lack of ability to stop them from drinking and using drugs, and they weren’t too impressed by adults’ abilities to get rid of gangs or run the government.

The lowest grade, a D+, was given to adults for their inability to stop young people from drinking. The teens also gave C- scores for adults’ poor listening habits, preventing young people from using drugs, getting rid of gangs and running the government.

Compared with previous surveys, however, adults went from C+ to B- in their efforts to make neighbourhoods safe, being honest and preventing child abuse.

Adults were given a B for creating job opportunities and a B- for providing quality education, spending time with their families, fighting AIDS and for being a lot of fun.

The survey was sponsored by Uhlich Children’s Home in Chicago, a youth social services organisation.

“The Uhlich Teen-age Report Card” encourages a dialogue between adults and teenagers,” said Tom Vanden Berk, president and executive director of Uhlich Children’s Home. “We hope that this year’s results will once again inspire adults to hear teens out.”

The survey was conducted in January and February by Teenage Research Unlimited (TRU) in Northbrook, Illinois, and sampled responses from 1,028 teenagers aged 12 to 19 nationally. The survey claims a 3 percentage point margin of error.

Teens received the questions in the form of a mail survey, with the results weighted to reflect regional, ethnic and gender distribution across the USA.

“Adults need to solicit and hear the opinions of teenagers and listen to them before passing judgment,” Vanden Berk said. “That we haven’t made any headway in really listening to and understanding young people is a wake-up call.”

The 2001 report card was the third released by Uhlich. It can be viewed at www.uhlich.org/reportcard. Reuters

75 YEARS AGO

S. Amar Singh Jhabal Resigns

A general meeting of the Shromani Akali Dal was held with Sardar Amar Singh Jhabal as President in the beginning. As the meeting proceeded, a resolution was passed, expressing dissatisfaction at the decision of the Executive Committee in postponing the Sarbat Khalsa Conference without sanction of the general committee. This was in a way a resolution of non confidence in the executive.

At this its chief, Sardar Amar Singh, tendered resignation of the Presidentship. Baba Gurdit Singh was then elected president of the Akali Dal. 

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

God is Omniscient because knowledge is His essence;

Mighty because Power is His essence;

Loving because Love is His essence...

not because these are attributes apart from His essence.

— Imam Jafar-us-Sadiq. Cited in Nahj-ul-Balaghat

*****

By whatever name God be called, if there be godly attributes we must surely bow to Him.

*****

Then what should God be like? Passionless and Formless. He should be a repository of all attributes, we must surely bow to Him.

*****

It is God that we have to please. If we praise, we should praise Him only. Then shall we become free of all worry and botheration.

*****

How shall we please God, how praise Him? By serving His creature — Man.

*****

To have faith in God should have been the easiest thing in the world, yet it appears to be the most difficult.

*****

True help can come only from God. But God helps only through some agency. Let no one, therefore, knowingly seek the help of a broken reed.

*****

Every minute of my life I am conscious of the presence of God. Why, then, need I fear anyone?

*****

When ‘I’ and When ‘God’? In determining this lies the test of wisdom.

*****

God is one. He is ever changeless and Formless. We are His mirrors. If we are straight and pure, God is also reflected in us as such. But if we are crooked and vile, His image suffers the same distortion. It behaves us, therefore, always to remain clean and pure in every respect.

*****

He who is the dust of everybody’s feet is near to God.

— Mahatma Gandhi, A Thought for the Day.