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Saturday,
June 9, 2001, Chandigarh, India  
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The Labour
gains Two-child
norm An
unbelievable tale |
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Worsening internal
security situation
“Kothi, makaan and
quarter”
Calcutta Market
Extension
Diabetes shortens
lifespan: study
What trouble in Nepal
means for India
False claims about
the economy
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The Labour gains NEWSPAPERS
predicted a Labour Party landslide and amen intoned opinion polls. And the ruling party duly went on to record a boring victory. So uninteresting the whole process was that as high as 43 per cent of the voters stayed away from the polling stations in a country where the turnout is usually upwards of 70 per cent. It is not that there were no issues. During the month-long campaign many bitterly complained that social services were deteriorating and needed massive public investment. But the opposition Conservative Party failed to tear into the Labour record on healthcare, education, roads and public transport. In fact it could not as it is ideologically hamstrung. It has been a tireless champion of free trade and privatisation. This is particularly so after the Margaret Thatcher days. Also it is led by a colourless Mr William Hague who looks more like a local school teacher or a neighbourhood shopkeeper than an election winning fighter. The Conservative Party is beginning to appear more like the original Muslim League in the initial years of Pakistan. Once the country was carved out in 1947, the League lost its relevance. Once Mrs Thatcher sold out all state-owned enterprises, services like water supply and residential places, the conservative ideology lost its appeal. Mr John Major led the party to victory simply because the British voters wanted to say a loud thank-you to his predecessor. This assessment has led many to declare that Labour is the natural party of governance, replacing the Conservatives. This receives sustenance from two facts. This is the first time that Labour will be in office for two successive full terms. Two, in 1997 too it swept the polls winning 419 seats. It has retained the lead with a likely loss of three seats. Big wins in two successive elections are not normal, not any way in the case of a party that is notorious for being forever a one-term ruler. Prime Minister Tony Blair faces two problems. He has to stop the voters from moving away from his party. His total votes in Sledgefield near London shrunk by a third — from over 36,000 to about 26,000. But they have not moved in large enough numbers to send the Conservatives to the treasury benches. The second problem is joining the euro club — that is, to make the common European currency a legal tender in England. He has promised a referendum, but the issue evokes deep passion. If he times it wrong, he will face grave difficulties in the next election. There is this minor problem. A big plus point for Labour is the healthy economy: low unemployment, low inflation and a reasonable all-round rise in income. And the winner in this case is Mr Gordon Brown, Chancellor of the Exchequer. He is an ambitious man and wants to be propitiated. In the realm of egos, clashes are frequent and fierce and impossible to defuse. |
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Two-child norm AFTER
dilly-dallying for a long time, the Gujarat Government has finally decided to make a law to encourage the two-child family norm. Under it, incentives and disincentives will be given on the basis of a report of a subcommittee constituted by the Cabinet. These recommendations are expected to be submitted by June 30. The measure would be effective exactly a year after the Bill is adopted. This is a small attempt to tackle a very big problem. After all, government jobs in relation to which these incentives and disincentives will work comprise only 2 per cent of all employment opportunities. At the same time, it must be conceded that population rise is a delicate social and personal issue and the government can at best intervene in a very sensitive and unobtrusive way. The anger over forced sterilisations during the Emergency days set back the family planning programme by decades. As a result, the problem has reached alarming proportions. The population of Gujarat alone has increased three-fold since Independence. Something has to be done to tackle it. Many lessons can be learnt from the implementation of similar schemes in China and other Asian countries. Initially, there was a lot of hue and cry, but by and by, the spirit behind the schemes was understood. At the same time, there were many attempts to hide and falsify figures. All such practical difficulties should be taken into account. India being a democracy, it will be more difficult to take various sections of society along. Already, certain groups are crying foul, without offering any credible and practical alternative. Their objections are three-fold. One, that the measure is targeted against certain communities. Two, that due to the conservative social set-up in the State, it just won't work. And three, that it will lead to female foeticide. What has been conveniently missed is that it will apply to all communities. The carrot-and-stick policy can indeed yield results, provided it is backed by other reforms. There has to be an overall improvement in the quality of life. As it is, the middle class has already realised the importance of having a small family. The message now has to be taken to those belonging to the low-income bracket. Since extra hands mean more earning, these poor people go in for more children. Most government efforts have to be targeted at them. |
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An unbelievable tale IS it possible for a family living in a crowded locality in Delhi to cut itself off from civilisation for five years? Had the police version not been available no one would have believed that Mrs Sunit Bajaj and her three children — Tarun 24, Aman 23 and Bhanu 19 — indeed spent five years in forced house-arrest in Kirti Nagar for fear of being killed by a Kansa-like relative. Many gaps in the strange tale need to be filled for getting a more coherent account. But there is no dispute over the fact that the family of four was indeed terrorised into remaining in hiding by Mrs Bajaj's brother for five years before the police finally decided to act on the mother's plea for help. The family's problem began in 1996 when Harish Chandra Bajaj, a well-to-do army contractor and husband of Sunit, died of suspected poisoning at the Ganga Ram Hospital. The woman's brother, Yogesh Kumar Bhatia, stopped her from filing an FIR. Thereafter began the family's tale of woes. It was driven out of Imphal where Harish had set up home and invested in real estate. Mrs Bajaj and her children shifted in 1996 to the house Harish had made in Kirti Nagar, never to move out of it again until the police knocked at their door last week in response to their cry for help. It will not do to blame just the police for the needless suffering Sunit and her children had to undergo for fear of being killed by their own relative. No one in the entire neighbourhood ever noticed anything unusual until the police turned up first to provide protection to the family and thereafter arrange for their medical treatment. Had the old mohalla system not been allowed to be destroyed by the march of time there is no way the plight of Sunit and her children would have escaped the attention of concerned neighbours. That too for five long years. Of course, the law enforcement agencies should reopen the case of the alleged poisoning of Harish by his brother-in-law Yogesh Bhatia. Attempts should be made to get them back their property in Imphal. The children had a good school record before they were made to give up studies because of the threat to their lives from their own uncle. Welfare agencies should help them integrate with a society that ironically had remained unaware of and, therefore, indifferent to their plight. A serious attempt should also be made to revive the mohalla system so that such a bizarre incident as the one involving Sunit and her children is not repeated. It is better to live among intrusive neighbours than in an indifferent neighbourhood. |
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Worsening
internal security situation NEW
DELHI is preparing to roll out the red carpet for Gen Pervez Musharraf. The havelis of Daryaganj are being spruced up. One would not be surprised if “Karim’s Restaurant” next to the Jama Masjid will be showcased as the producers of the best kebabs in the sub-continent, ready to take on the kebabwallahs of Lahore, Peshawar and Karachi as the producers of Mughalai culinary delights!! We do, after all, now seem to believe that symbols are more important than substance. It is, therefore, not surprising that few people seem to be interested in the growing deterioration in the country’s internal security situation. Our attentions seem to be more focused on issues like whether the Artillery or the Grenadiers should have the honour of presenting arms to the architect of Kargil. Amidst all these lively developments one is still mystified as to what precisely caused the government to change its mind and do a policy U-turn on its approach to a dialogue with the Musharraf dispensation. With a friendly Bush Administration in Washington, Indian diplomacy had for the first time succeeded in creating a situation where the heat was on Islamabad to cool its ardor for the causes of jihadis and not on Delhi to unconditionally talk to Islamabad. We were advised that one of the factors behind this turnaround was the Pakistani decision to observe “maximum restraint” along the Line of Control. Imagine our surprise when this assertion was robustly contradicted in the Defence Ministry’s Annual Report that asserted that Rawalpindi’s pious references to “maximum restraint” were “self-serving”. Those, in the armed forces who have served along the Line of Control will testify that prior to the Ramzan ceasefire Indian artillery was causing devastating damage in the Neelam Valley and elsewhere across the Line of Control. By proclaiming “maximum restraint” Islamabad rightly assumed that we would end this artillery fire is even as it continued to support the infiltration of jehadis. Such a development would inevitably create a situation where we would continue to “bleed” even as Pakistan’s soldiers slept peacefully in PoK. Further, as the “maximum restraint” was to be observed on the Line of Control and not the International Border, the Pakistan Rangers have had no inhibitions in targeting their counterparts and those involved in constructing a border fence on our side of the international border. The Prime Minister himself has acknowledged that the Ramzan ceasefire did not have the desired results. It needs to be recalled that by May, 1999, the security situation in the Kashmir valley had improved so much that for the first time in a decade tourists were visiting Srinagar and other resorts in large numbers. The militants were on the run. In the decade preceding these developments, the sustained operations of the security forces had resulted in the capture of nearly 30,000 semi-automatic weapons, three million rounds of ammunition, over a hundred thousand explosive devices and hundreds of mortars, machine guns and rocket launchers. Those misguided Kashmiri youth who had taken to arms were becoming convinced that they were mere tools in the hands of the ISI and that pursuing the armed struggle was a futile endeavour. With waning morale in Kashmiri outfits like the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, Islamabad was forced to review its strategy and step up infiltration across the LoC of Pakistani jehadis from groups like the Lashkar-e-Toiba. What was earlier an armed struggle by disaffected Kashmir youth had become an ISI sponsored jehad conducted predominantly by Pakistani and some Afghan nationals. World opinion does not exactly favour such blatant use of religion to pursue political ends. A major factor inhibiting the militants was their realisation that there were enough people in Jammu and Kashmir who would expose them to the security forces. What has happened since the advent of the Ramzan ceasefire? While the ratio of security personnel and terrorists killed was 1:5 in the first 10 years of Kashmir militancy, the security forces found that one of them had to die for every two militants killed during the ceasefire. This is an unacceptable kill ratio for any organised security force. Further, the militants have succeeded in targeting and instilling fear amongst intelligence assets, pro-government politicians like the members of the National Conference, special police officers and members of village defence committees. Separatist and avowedly pro-Pakistani groups like the Hurriyat Conference have been strengthened. Militants have now established secure bases in urban centres, with the population either contemptuous of the efficacy of the state apparatus, or realising that they have no option but to toe the line of their jehadi “guest”. It is not without significance that even people like Shabir Shah and G.M. Shah have their inhibitions and fears of dealing with Mr K.C. Pant. There is after all, a virtual ISI ordained fatwah against all those who dare to welcome Mr Pant’s efforts. Apart from the deterioration in the security situation in the valley, those living in and around the Jammu region are also apprehensive about recent developments. There are fears that there is now significant infiltration into the Jammu region also, with infiltrators setting up hideouts to create problems at a time and place of their choosing. These elements obviously have their eyes on lines of communication, including the railways. It would be naive to believe that Islamabad has given up its aims of stoking militancy and separatism in Punjab. Given the security precautions in Punjab, infiltration through Jammu presents a tempting alternative for the ISI to promote violence in Punjab. It is not without reason that the virulently anti-Indian former ISI chief, Gen Javed Nasir, has been retained by General Musharraf as head of a so-called “Gurudwara Parbandhak Committee” in Lahore. Further, we should constantly remember that those charged as being responsible for the Bombay bomb blasts are today living in opulent comfort in places like Karachi. The fact that the objective of the ISI is to destabilise and create problems for India throughout the country, was acknowledged by a former ISI chief in a conference last year in Islamabad. The attack on the Red Fort, the bomb explosions near the Prime Minister’s office and the attempt to infiltrate into Ayodhya should all be seen in this context. Our porous borders with Nepal and Bangladesh will be used not only for such purposes but also to exploit our vulnerabilities in the North East. These were, after all, routes used by the Pakistani hijackers of IC 814. The seriousness of the internal security situation should be evident from the fact that the otherwise soft spoken Chief Minister of West Bengal has spoken out about it for the first time publicly. There is no reason to believe that such activities will cease merely by rolling out the red carpet for General Musharraf. This is more so as influential Pakistanis and a wide
cross-section of the Pak media have chosen to read both the ceasefire and the invitation to Musharraf as arising from Indian weakness and from international
pressure. Despite the foregoing, we need to constantly bear in mind that many of our security problems have been largely self-created. If the 1987 elections were perceived as being flawed by large sections of people in Kashmir, it was the competitive rivalry in exploiting communal sentiments in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh that led to communal tensions in these states — tensions that Pakistan has relentlessly exploited. As both Punjab and Uttar Pradesh prepare to go to the polls with existing state governments being widely perceived as having under-performed, one can only hope that a sense of statesmanship will prevail over considerations of political expediency. One is intrigued at the kidglove treatment in Punjab being given to those who have in the past waged war and have been charged with sedition against the Indian Union. We need to constantly bear in mind that there are forces outside India that are only too keen to exploit communal and caste divides in our society and body-politic. The strengthening of our secular and pluralistic democratic polity, together with sustained and accelerated economic growth combined with social justice, are the best answers to overcome the external challenges that we face to our internal security today. |
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“Kothi, makaan and quarter” “SIR, please get me allotted a house out of the government pool”, I implored my boss, the District Superintendent of Police, as I landed in Gurdaspur, way back in 1971, as an Assistant Superintendent of Police, after the completion of my training in the National Police Academy, then at Mount Abu, Rajasthan. And sure enough, in the next meeting of the house allotment committee chaired by the Deputy Commissioner, he got me allotted one and announced to me: “Congratulations, you have been allotted a kothi”. Since then, in my interaction with the people in Punjab, I have often heard them refer to their own house and of others, too, as kothi, though the house may be a small one built on a plot — area no bigger than 10 marla (250 square yards). Once, in 1976, a friend of mine invited me to a house-warming party in Mohali. He had built the new house, a single storey unit on a 10 marla plot, spending a fortune on the latest and the best, the Makrana marble, Nagpur teak, coloured tiles, showers and geysers. The invitee referred to the house as a kothi. As a matter of fact, the invitation cards on marriage or engagement, birth or death, mundan or muhurat or on any other occasion would generally proclaim the residential address of the host to be at a kothi. Back in Lucknow, the place I came from, before joining the IPS in Punjab, we would usually call a house a “makaan”. My father had built one, way back in 1960. It was a modest, small house. We were delighted to have one of our own and fondly referred to it as “our makaan ”. Some of our relatives and friends in Lucknow and other parts of Uttar Pradesh, however, had, spacious and commodious houses built on large land areas. Still, we referred to them as “makaan” or sometimes as bungalows. A house, big or small, was usually, a “makaan”. A Lucknowite would, however, while inviting one to his house would say with humility, “Please, pay a visit to my garibkhana”, and the one being invited would reply: “It shall be my pleasure to come to your daulatkhana.” The reason behind a Punjabi calling a house a “kothi”, now and always, did not strike me so clearly, till in 1979, a neighbour of mine in Chandigarh, a Superintending Engineer, belonging to Andhra Pradesh and serving with the Haryana Government enlightened me: “Kothi is to a Punjabi what mirror is to a man. In it, he finds reflected his psyche, his soul, his desires, the power and pelf, the wealth and wad, his buoyant spirit and the unquenching thirst to live a rich and worldly life.” Years later, in 1989, while I was serving as a DIG in the CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) at Chandigarh, a Superintendent of Police, belonging to Himachal Pradesh and of the West Bengal cadre of the IPS joined the Bureau under me. He requested me: “Sir, please get me allotted a ‘quarter’ through the Chandigarh Administration.” “You mean, you want a kothi?” I asked him. By now, I too, had turned a Punjabi. “Yes, Sir, “he replied,” a ‘quarter’, Sir!” I knew he wanted a house. In the course of time, he was allotted one. I congratulated him saying that he had been allotted a kothi. He beamed a smile and said, “Thank you, for the ‘quarter’, Sir!” |
Calcutta Market Extension
At the next Wednesday’s meeting of the Calcutta Corporation, recommendations of the Public Utilities and Markets Standing Committee, dated May 30, 1926, with regard to the extension of Sir Stewart Hogg Market will be confirmed. The Committee were asked recently to sanction the revised estimate of Rs 6,14,569 for the extension of the Market. The original estimate for its extension, as sanctioned by the Government, was Rs 359,569 which was subsequently revised to
Rs 614,569. The increase of Rs 255,000 over the original estimate includes Rs 155,000 for the acquisition of certain premises in the Market Street. |
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Diabetes shortens lifespan: study DIABETICS
die younger than those without the disease regardless of age, sex or how affluent they are, scientists said on Friday. Researchers at Middlesbrough General Hospital in northern England, who studied more than 4,800 diabetics, said the decreased life expectancy was most pronounced in people with Type 1 diabetes, the most serious form of the disease. But people diagnosed with Type 2, or adult onset diabetes, before the age of 40 had a reduced life expectancy of eight years compared to their healthy contemporaries. "Diabetes is associated with excess mortality," said Nick Roper, of the Diabetes Care Centre at the hospital. In a study in the British Medical Journal, the researchers compared the number and causes of deaths among the diabetics in one of the poorest areas of England with the general population in the same area over a six-year period. Over a quarter of the diabetics died during the study, an overall mortality about 2.2 times the national average. The number of deaths increased from 1.3 times the national average in affluent districts to 2.3 times in the poorest sections. The main cause of death in the study was heart disease. Diabetes is a leading risk factor for the illness. In an editorial in the journal, Gareth Williams of University Hospital Aintree in Liverpool, said the research carries grim warnings about diabetes. "The study was meticulous in design and conservative in assumptions; if anything, the damage done by both diabetes and poverty was probably underestimated," he said. Diabetes is a chronic disease that occurs when the body does not produce enough insulin or when it cannot use insulin efficiently. Type 1 diabetics accounts for about 10-25 percent of cases worldwide. Without daily insulin patients with low blow sugar levels can slip into a coma, while high levels can lead to blindness, heart disease, stroke, kidney problems and nerve damage. Type 2 is a milder condition that can be treated with diet, exercise or drugs to stimulate the secretion of insulin. There is no cure. The disease affects 130 million people worldwide and kills 2.8 million year. Experts estimate the number of sufferers will increase to 220 million by the year 2010. The expected rise in diabetes is closely linked with the obesity epidemic. Reuters Born with Down’s syndrome Americans born with Down’s syndrome are living considerably longer than they did in the early 1960s, but blacks who have the congenital disorder are dying 25 years sooner than whites, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have said. Down’s syndrome is the most common cause of mental retardation in the USA, affecting about one in 800 newborns. Those born with the disorder suffer much higher rates of heart disease, Leukemia and Alzheimer’s disease. Health experts said there were no known medical reasons for the racial disparity, suggesting instead that differences in income, education and other social factors might be responsible. Friedman said that improvements in health care and changes in the way society treated the mentally retarded had likely contributed to the increased life span of those with Down’s syndrome. Decades ago, it was common to institutionalise children with the disorder, who are typically shorter, have undersized heads and suffer moderate to severe mental retardation. But now many live with their families and attend public schools. Reuters Many Britons can’t handle a teapot Tea cosies and beanbags are being blamed for the rising number of people in Britain who hurt themselves at home. Thirty-seven people hurt themselves using teapot warmers in 1999, compared with just 20 the previous year, a study by the Department of Trade and Industry showed. Most were scalded during efforts to pick up a teapot by its cover rather than the handle. The number of accidents involving tree trunks also rose from 1,777 to 1,810, while mishaps with bird baths soared from 117 to 311, according to statistics compiled by the Home and Leisure Accident Surveillance System and published in New Scientist magazine. Armchairs were deemed safer, with a drop in injuries inflicted by them from 18,690 to 16,662.
DPA |
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What trouble in Nepal means for India ON the face of it the extraordinary story of the massacre of Nepal’s royal family, allegedly by the Crown Prince, is now over. The funerals have taken place, a new King has been crowned and violence in the streets of Kathmandu will inevitably end soon and then a measure of normality should return. But is this really going to happen? And what could be the implications of all this for India? In Delhi the events of the past few days have been watched with horror and fascination not just in the corridors of power but also in drawingrooms. It would not be untrue to say that it has been virtually the only topic of discussion wherever you went. What is the latest from Kathmandu has been the opening gambit of all conversations. Everyone seemed to have the latest details gleaned from non-stop television coverage and everyone puzzled over whether the Crown Prince was the real killer. How do we know for sure? Where has the information come from? Why would he do it even if he were drunk? Where were the King’s guards? How did he manage to walk back into the family dinner party dressed in combat fatigues and carrying a machine gun? These are only some of the questions that I heard people ask over and over in Delhi’s various circles. In some I met relatives of the Nepalese royal family who recounted what they knew of those who had died and of the love story that allegedly caused the tragedy. Speculation has run wild. He was determined to marry Devyani Rana, it is said, but the Queen was totally opposed to the match because Devyani’s father, Pashupati Rana, comes from a different branch of the Rana family to the one to which she belonged. There was enmity-ancient, bitter enmity-between the two branches and the Queen could not tolerate the idea of a daughter-in-law from the enemy branch. Then, there was the fact that she was half Indian and this was a minus point since below the surface friendship there has always been an under-current of hostility in Nepal towards India. This, as we know, is true. The hostility was considerably exacerbated when Rajiv Gandhi as Prime Minister decided to blockade, little, land-locked Nepal because he thought the King was flirting with China. It was a stupid thing to do and it reminded Nepal that India could be a big bully when it came to its relationships with smaller countries. Indians living in Kathmandu remember it as a particularly bad time for them. There were queues all over the city for fuel, food and other essential items — all of which came through India — and it was hard for them to explain why the Indian government behaved the way it did. That may all be in the past but the memory of the blockade remains and India is inclined to be blamed for much of what goes wrong in Nepal. It happens that a few days before the massacre of the royal family I met a Nepalese journalist in the Netherlands. We were attending a conference in The Hague and became acquainted on the first day because South Asians veer towards each other at international gatherings. We got talking about the Maoist insurgency in Nepal and he said that he had been amazed by the manner in which the Indian Press had “blacked it out”. “Almost nothing appears about it,” he said “and yet Kathmandu is full of Indian correspondents. When I ask them why they write nothing about it they tell me that I should ask their proprietors for the reason”. The implication being that the Indian Press was deliberately not reporting the fact that a third of Nepal is now under Maoist control because the insurgency was backed by Indian intelligence agencies. I tried to explain that this was impossible because if our intelligence agencies were so efficient they would have been able to do more to stop Pakistani terrorism in India. But he was unconvinced and gave me a copy of Himal magazine’s May, 2001 issue which has its cover story “The Killing Terraces of Nepal”. Inside, a lengthy story called the “Day of the Maoist” details the six-year-old insurgency which has caused the death of 1,700 Nepalese. The story talked of how Maoist guerrillas had killed nearly a hundred policemen and how they had set up aadhar ilakas or areas under their total control. The Indian connection mentioned in the story related to connections with Maoist groups in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh and to the allegation that Nepal’s Maoists were buying modern weapons in the “illegal arms bazaar of the neighbouring Indian states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh”. There was no mention of Indian intelligence agencies but the Nepali journalist insisted that there was one and continued to harp on the fact that the insurgency has so far received almost no coverage in the Indian Press. It was a point mentioned to me also, two months ago, by Pashupati Rana, Devyani’s father, when he was in Delhi for a family wedding. The insurgency is very serious I remember him saying Maoists have taken control of nearly a third of the country and it’s strange that it finds no mention in the Indian Press”. Events have overtaken that conversation but the Maoist link to the royal massacre is that King Birendra, according to my sources, was seriously considering the possibility of using the army to halt insurgency. This has led to many rumours in Delhi that what happened at the family dinner party was not a massacre by the Crown Prince but a palace coup led by King Gyanendra whose immediate family miraculously survived unhurt. His son, Paras, was in the room and is believed to be the main source of information about what happened. The new Queen was also at the dinner party but escaped with minor injuries. This has led to speculation not just in Delhi but in Kathmandu that there was a conspiracy behind the massacre. Protesters in the streets of Kathmandu reportedly shouted “Gyanendra hatyara” when he was crowned King. There is no question that there is trouble ahead not just for him but for Nepal. It is believed to be the second poorest country in the world with more than seventy per cent of its people living below the poverty line and with 10 per cent of the population controlling nearly half the national wealth. Ideal conditions for a Maoist insurgency, made even more perfect now that there is serious political instability. This cannot be good for India, especially not if a significant section of Nepal’s opinion-makers believe that our intelligence agencies could be involved in making trouble. Memories of our bullying tactics in the past will undoubtedly revive and it will take all the skills our Ministry of External Affairs can summon up to make things better. Meanwhile, the only good news is that those who know King Gyanendra speak of him as an educated, intelligent man with a wide range of interests and experience. This is small comfort for Nepal in a very troubled time. |
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False claims about the economy THE State Bank of Pakistan, the guide and the custodian of Pakistan’s fiscal health, is happy to find the economy under the military command virtually booming. Look at the figures it recently released. Large-scale manufacturing is up from a mere 3.5 per cent last year and 3.6 a year earlier to 8.8 per cent. All thanks to the increased sugar production. So are exports up 8.4 per cent as against 8.9 per cent and an earlier decline of 11.7 per cent. What is more, Pakistanis are sending more money back home. Some one billion US dollar. Remittances are up by 16.8 per cent. There had been earlier steep falls 9 per cent last year and 31.5 per cent a year earlier. In addition, tax revenue has increased by 15 per cent as against 18 per cent last year and a mere 2 per cent during the popular government under Nawaz Sharif. The fiscal deficit is down to 5.3 per cent as against 6.5 per cent last year. A year earlier it was at 6.1 per cent. Happily, trade deficit is up only by 1.7 per cent as against 2.3 per cent last year and 3.6 per cent in 1999. The bank also claims that Pakistan has got a good certificate from the International Monetary Fund and it has now “good standing and enhanced credibility” in the international funding community. But much of this rosy picture ends here. The consumer price index that measures the rate of inflation is up from 3.4 per cent to 4.8 per cent. Bad news for the poor and most commentators in the media have taken a serious note of this. The Nation, Nawa-e-Waqt, The Friday Times and other newspapers which have taken the bank’s report with a pinch of salt, have all made scathing comments. While cotton that has escaped the ravages of drought since it requires less watering, but wheat and other crops have suffered heavily. Water shortage and drought, the bank said, has pushed the gross domestic product to 3 per cent. The GDP would be stagnating at 3 per cent since last year. This should be a cause of worry, but the bank would rather blame nature for the poor GDP. It has nothing to say about lack of land reforms, high cost of inputs for agriculture [there was a steep rise of 50 to 70 per cent during one year alone] and very poor infrastructure. The managers of the economy claim many pluses, but nature has thwarted their making the economy boom. Let us look a more real picture. Last year the growth of major crops averaged at 9 per cent. This year it is down by 5 per cent. But then agriculture now accounts for only 25 per cent of the GDP. Why should a small decline in agriculture output cause such a fall in the GDP? Also the major crop of cotton has escaped the wrath of drought. Cotton also accounts for 65 per cent of exports. The responsibility for the decline cannot be put at the door of the hapless farmers alone who leave nothing to chance. Last year agriculture production grew by 9.6 per cent, yet the GDP was just 3 per cent. The Friday Times made its own assessment. An editorial summed up thus: “Critical statistics and explanations are missing. These tell the real story. What has happened to savings and investments? These have fallen to 11 per cent of the GDP, the lowest ever. There is also no attempt to explain the decline in investments; there is a huge decline of 70 per cent over the last year’s level. The report also does not tell how much money has fled the country for want of stability and certainty. The right atmosphere even for the local capital is missing. So much for the rule by men in khaki. One estimate has put this sum at U.S. one billion $ this year alone. And why anyone should save when the interest rate is down to a mere 10 per cent and the government proposes to levy income tax on savings. Rupee is being devalued at 15 per cent per year on an average. Rupee savings yield 10 per cent and the dollar savings 20 per cent. The lesson is put your money outside.” And why do Pakistanis send more money from the Gulf and other countries. The simple answer is that there was a one-time windfall handed out by the Kuwait government as compensation suffered during the Gulf war in 1991. The relevance of fiscal deficit is largely for the IMF. This cut in deficit means cut in expenditure on development and poverty alleviation programmes. The economy is certainly down as savers and investors have no confidence in the domestic and foreign policies of the government. There is violence all around. Ethnic clashes are a daily affair and drug trafficking is just on the rise despite propaganda to the contrary. Kashmir cannot help the economy grow or the poverty levels to improve. Until then the statistics will only tell lies. |
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SPIRITUAL NUGGETS Priceless are His attributes, Priceless His dealings; Priceless , the stores of His virtues. Priceless , the dealers in them; Priceless those who seek these gifts, Priceless those who take these gifts. ***** Pricelessly precious is devotion to Thee, Pricelessly precious is absorption in Thee; Pricelessly His law and spirit of righteousness, Priceless His mansions of dispensation; Priceless His scales of judgement. Priceless His weights for judging. ***** Priceless His gifts, Priceless His marks upon them; Priceless His mercy and Priceless His will; How beyond price He is cannot be expressed. Those who try to express it are mute in adoration. —
Japji Sahib, 26 ***** Death means an end. A car whose parts are worn out is dead; it has come to an end. And so at death the physical body comes to an end. But the immortal soul cannot be dead. Every night, in sleep, the soul lives without any consciousness of the physical body, but it is not dead. Death is only a greater sleep, wherein the soul lives without any consciousness of the physical body; but it is not dead. Death is only a greater sleep wherein the soul lives in the astral body without the consciousness of the physical body. —
Paramahamsa Yogananda, Man's Eternal Quest. ***** Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks. —
The Holy Bible, St. John, 16.24. ***** Be ye steadfast in prayer, And give the glad tidings to those who believe. —
The Holy
Quran, 10.87. |
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